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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26619325">darling, we’re dreamers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/conclusion/pseuds/conclusion'>conclusion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Development, Character Study, Choi Beomgyu-Centric, Found Family, Inferiority complexes, M/M, Pining, Romance, Self-Discovery, The Trials and Tribulations of Idolising a Bandmate: The Fic, They all love each other very much, a deeper look into the “bg idolises yj” trope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:07:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,665</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26619325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/conclusion/pseuds/conclusion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Beomgyu has heard of a saying before. </p>
  <p>The one that goes, “Never meet your idols.” Let them remain as pretty faces on a screen, as beings that seem so very untouchable, bathed in the glitz and glamour that comes with the celebrity life. Admire them from afar, always at a distance, because if you bridge that gap, the expectations you have built for years will shatter. Your world shifts on its axis, and nothing quite makes sense anymore. </p>
  <p>What then, is one supposed to do, when a person becomes your idol <i>after</i> you meet them? Beomgyu wonders idly, as he gazes at a laughing Yeonjun from the opposite end of the practice room, if the universe has an answer for that.</p>
</blockquote>Alternatively: Puma promotions bring round Yeonjun in a leather shirt. It aids Beomgyu not only in realising a few things about his feelings for the older, but about himself as well.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Choi Beomgyu/Choi Yeonjun</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>295</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>darling, we’re dreamers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello there! before we start, please note that after each scene in the present (written in normal text), there is a scene in italics, which signifies beomgyu’s memories of happenings from the past. the timeline that follows present events is in chronological order, while the one that details the past doesn’t follow any particular order. i hope this clears things up! ^^</p><p>i’d like to take a quick second to thank my best friend, manya. this fic wouldn’t have been what it is without your support. ily! &lt;3</p><p>now, without any further ado, grab a snack, excuse any mistakes i might have glossed over while editing, and enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As unconventional as it may seem, Beomgyu thinks that there is something oddly cathartic about dressing rooms. </p><p>There is comfort and familiarity in the clacking of multiple sticks of lip-balm as they brush against each other, in the ruffling of their slightly obnoxious stage costumes that comes with the slightest movement, in the loud, <em> ‘does anyone have a hairdryer to spare?’ </em></p><p>This is only their second comeback—their third time going through the gruelling process of the preparations that lead up to each live stage, yet Beomgyu thinks he has settled into the works of things quite comfortably already. </p><p>He breathes in quietly as he stretches with as much lethargy as his environment allows, relishing the almost inaudible sound his bones emit as they slip into place. He exhales slowly then, letting the satisfaction that comes with the stretch supersede the exhaustion that had settled in the marrow of his bones. 5 AM rehearsals always did bring about a completely different kind of tiredness.   </p><p>As he settles snugly against the leather-covered pillows of one of the couches in their assigned dressing room, he takes a moment to absorb his surroundings. </p><p>The two youngest, much like him, seem to be ready to go, all dressed up in black jackets and dark shirts with perfectly touched up makeup. Taehyun leans over Kai’s shoulder, both hands looped loosely through the youngest’s arm as the two of them peer into his phone, too wrapped up in each other and whatever is on the screen to pay any heed to the outside world. Taehyun breaks out into a radiant smile filled with unrestrained joy, all sharp canines and dimples—the kind of smile only Kai can draw out of him. Beomgyu purses his lips in fondness and looks away. </p><p>The stylist working on Soobin is adding what look like the finishing touches to his appearance; as she carefully styles his lilac locks into soft waves and pushes them away from his eyes, the leader stares at a spot on the wall to his side and mindlessly mouths the lyrics to his parts in the song they’re going to perform today, as Beomgyu can discern from the movement of his lips in the mirror.</p><p>The fifth—the one Beomgyu usually keeps an eye out for—is nowhere to be seen. </p><p>He scans the room yet again, this time with furrowed eyebrows. He’d been watching the buzz of activity in the vicinity with glossed over vision since he had first settled on the couch, and although he might not have been fully present mentally, he’s sure he would have noticed if someone—especially if that someone has hair that looks like it was coloured with a highlighter—had left the room at some point. </p><p>He isn’t given the chance to ruminate on it further, though. </p><p>“Beomgyu-ssi,” a voice calls, and both the closeness and suddenness of it makes him jolt violently. He looks up in alarm, relaxing only when he catches sight of a familiar set of eyes gazing down at him expectantly. They belong to a benign middle-aged woman who had been in charge of styling him on several occasions in the past. His gaze then falls on the articles that occupy her hands—two small bottles of black nail polish. “Your nails,” she says softly, her voice is muffled by the mask pulled over her nose. Beomgyu almost doesn’t hear her over the din in the air until she points wordlessly at where he has his hands folded over his middle. He hurries to scoot over and give her room on the couch; she takes a seat at a polite distance from him and lightly takes a hold of the hand he holds out towards her.</p><p>He glances down at his hands, mesmerised by the shine of the freshly applied polish that has his nails glistening under the tacky white lighting of the dressing room. He remembers how excited he had been when they were informed of this little addition the stylists had made to the styling agenda for Puma—how cool he had thought it was of them to dismantle the stigmatized stereotype surrounding boys and nail art in their own subtle way. Besides, the touch also blended seamlessly with the aesthetic of their concept; it was the perfect little detail—so insignificant that it could be dismissed without a second thought, but once acknowledged, it made all the difference. </p><p>The entire ordeal doesn’t take more than five minutes, a predictable result of both the woman’s aptitude and Beomgyu’s cooperation. She walks off after issuing a customary warning along the lines of, <em> Be careful not to do anything with your hands just yet, </em>and as she nears the spot that the two youngest have claimed as theirs, Beomgyu assumes his initial position on the couch, taking care not to jostle his hands too much. </p><p>He allows himself the luxury of slipping back into his previous headspace, knowing full well that they still have almost an entire hour to spare until they would even have to make a move towards the stage area. </p><p>He stares at the leathery sleeveless overcoat that had been thrown around his shoulders and wonders if the fans will like this change of concept that contrasts their previous releases so starkly. He would have liked to see their reactions first-hand, but the odds barely ever work in his favour, he has realised. </p><p>Beomgyu’s eyebrows pinch together in confusion when the spot he had been staring at on his jacket suddenly darkens; he’s about to curse the electricity unit for deciding to malfunction when they’re in such suffocating attire when a hand suddenly grabs his. </p><p>His head shoots up in alarm, and that is when he sees him.</p><p>Yeonjun is a sight to behold in his body-hugging leather shirt and stylishly gelled neon yellow locks, and Beomgyu is sure that the older is well aware of the effect his presence has on those around him, if his complacent half-smile is anything to go by. </p><p>“Just got your nails painted?” he inquires, his inherently melodic voice cutting through the silence in Beomgyu’s mind like a knife through hot butter.</p><p>“Mm,” Beomgyu responds, brain much too muddled to form a more coherent reply. His hand burns in all the points where it comes in contact with Yeonjun’s and he wonders whether the older can feel the heat through their touch. Licking his lips and swallowing, he adds conversationally, “They won’t dry.” </p><p>Yeonjun raises an eyebrow at him and before he can even blink, he has sunk such that his eyes are level with Beomgyu’s, steadying himself with a hand on the younger’s knee and the other still firmly twined with his. He then brings the hand in his grip to his lips and blows gently on Beomgyu’s nails. </p><p>Beomgyu isn’t sure if the shiver that ripples down his spine is a result of the sudden blast of air being blown onto his skin or the lack of distance between them, but he dismisses it in favour of gaping at the man in front of him. “Hyung,” he breathes, trying not to let the panic he feels within him leak into his voice, “this really isn’t necessary...” </p><p>“Our stage has been preponed,” Yeonjun pauses to explain, looking up at him with eyes that twinkle almost knowingly. Beomgyu decides to unpack the meaning behind that omniscient glint some other time, when he is in the right frame of mind to do so; for now, however, he tries to come up with something—<em>anything</em>—to redeem himself, because he knows that it’s only a matter of time until Yeonjun catches on to how blatantly obvious he’s being. The older seems to have other plans, though, for he continues smoothly, “the soloist that was supposed to perform before us had some wardrobe malfunction, so we’re performing before her now. We can’t have you going on stage with wet nails now, can we?” he concludes with a teasing smile before resuming his ministrations. </p><p>Beomgyu decides to train his gaze on anything but the person in front of him and so he looks frantically around himself, immensely grateful when his eyes lock onto Taehyun’s from across the room. The redhead tilts his head towards Yeonjun’s bent form and looks back at him with a raised eyebrow—the emotion packed into that singular eyebrow raise trumps anything the younger could have expressed in words, and perhaps if Beomgyu wasn’t as distressed as he is now, he would have taken the time to commend him on the control he has over his facial muscles, but that is unfortunately not the case. He hopes that his eyes relay at least half of the panic he feels as they bore into Taehyun’s, and apparently they do, because the younger shakes his head in disappointment before returning to Kai and his phone. The little traitor. </p><p>“Hey.” </p><p>Beomgyu’s gaze snaps back to the figure before him. He is met with feline eyes that look up at him with barely concealed amusement. </p><p>“Is hyung flustering you?” he teases, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in a self-assured smile. </p><p>“You give yourself too much credit,” Beomgyu scoffs in retaliation. The effect of the retort is diluted by the quiver that coats it, however, and Beomgyu <em> knows </em>that the older has caught onto it, judging by the widening of his smile. </p><p>“Keep telling yourself that,” he chuckles as he places Beomgyu’s hand back on the couch and lifts the other, “maybe you’ll start believing it one day. But the truth of the matter is, Beomie-yah, that the effects of my charm know no bounds. It is a universal fact.” </p><p>“You’re insufferable,” Beomgyu says with a huff, which quickly turns into a hiss when Yeonjun blows too harshly on a particular nail. He almost pulls his hand away but is stopped by Yeonjun tightening his grip around it and squeezing briefly.</p><p>“You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” he grins before he falls quiet again, focusing entirely on drying Beomgyu’s nails. They settle into a state of normalcy with that; the beat of Beomgyu’s heart has slowed to the normal rate, giving him the room to breathe properly again, and Yeonjun’s ribbing has ceased. For a brief, peaceful moment, all is well. </p><p>That is, until, </p><p>“All done!” Yeonjun beams proudly, patting the back of Beomgyu’s hand with his own. </p><p>Beomgyu is more than eager to slip his hand out of Yeonjun’s grasp, but the older surprises him once again. </p><p>“I’m not finished just yet, though,” he says. Alarm bells start blaring in Beomgyu’s head at the sight of the cheeky smirk that draws itself across Yeonjun’s pillowy lips, because the implications of that particular smile can never mean anything good. </p><p>“What—”  </p><p>The question dies on his tongue instantly. His voice catches on a gasp and he watches with wide, disbelieving eyes as Yeonjun brings his hand to his lips and places a light, fleeting kiss on the back of it. His mouth barely makes contact with Beomgyu’s skin—the softness of his lips brushes against that of the younger’s hand for all of two seconds, but the aftereffect remains for much longer. The contact is electrifying—Beomgyu’s skin tingles with the shocks of it. </p><p>“There.” </p><p>Beomgyu looks up, dazed, to see that Yeonjun is looking at him already. His expressive eyes glimmer with mirth, and Beomgyu stares into them for as long as he can before Yeonjun gets back to his feet. </p><p>Towering over him like this, the lines of his body accentuated by the lighting of the room (it comes as absolutely no surprise to Beomgyu that he manages to look godly even in such poor lighting), Yeonjun looks ethereal, and Beomgyu can do nothing but stare. </p><p>Yeonjun tilts his head to look down at him, flicks a lock of hair out of his eyes confidently and then, <em>winks </em> at him. (And since it is Yeonjun, both of his eyes close rather than just one and the sight should be adorably hilarious, if anything, but somehow, it isn’t. It’s lethal.)  </p><p>With that, he turns on his heel and struts away, in the direction of where Soobin is still getting his hair styled, with the aim of getting on his nerves, most likely. </p><p>Beomgyu is shaken out of his stupor by his phone buzzing from where it lay discarded on the couch beside him. He glances down at the lock screen that displays the notification of the text he had received; on a closer look, he sees that it’s from Taehyun. </p><p><em> ‘Might want to close your mouth before you catch a fly in there, hyung,’ </em>it reads. </p><p>Beomgyu’s head shoots up, his gaze zeroing in on where the maknaes sit across him and are already looking back at him with varying reactions to the little display that had taken place. Kai’s lips are pursed, straining with the effort of holding back his laughter whereas Taehyun doesn’t bother concealing his amusement in the slightest. Beomgyu glowers at them, narrowing his eyes in a manner he hopes comes off as threatening. His hopes are crushed when Taehyun raises an eyebrow at him, challenging. Beomgyu huffs and tears his gaze away. Curse Taehyun and his talented eyebrows. </p><p>Beomgyu eventually finds himself staring at Yeonjun once again, in spite of swearing to himself just minutes ago that he’d do anything but. </p><p>The oldest is playing with Soobin’s—newly styled—hair, his audience being a very disgruntled Soobin and a tired stylist, both of whom regard him with fond exasperation. That is simply the effect Choi Yeonjun has on people. </p><p>Yeonjun’s eyes meet Beomgyu’s in the mirror, and although he should, he finds himself both unable and unwilling to look away. Yeonjun smiles at him through the mirror—this time, it’s entirely genuine, stripped of any mockery or condescension. </p><p>Beomgyu smiles back. </p><p>Perhaps that is where it all starts. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Perhaps it had started a long time ago.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The location that had been picked for the filming of the Puma music video is unlike anything Beomgyu has ever seen before. There are two sets—the first one is rather plain in design, but what it lacks in glamour, it makes up for in size. The place is so grand in size that Beomgyu had lost his way in its complicated layout five minutes after they had arrived. It looks—and is meant to look—like a cave, and so the colour palette includes lots of greys and other monochrome shades. Beomgyu doesn’t quite know what to make of the place—if he stares at his surroundings for too long, his mood starts to dampen simply because of the depressing colour scheme and stone cold walls, yet the way the venue is constructed makes it look so much like a real cave that he can’t help but marvel at it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The second set is far more exciting, with walls that were built in a way that made it appear as if they were melting, painted a bright red that would look terribly gaudy anywhere else but somehow manages to work here. Beomgyu had been in complete awe of the architecture and had been buzzing with anticipation, eager to spend as much as possible in a place so disparate from what he is used to. He’s sure he has never been as disappointed as he was when he was told that the second set was reserved for the next day’s schedule.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> For now, he’s stuck in the bland first set, trying his level best to focus on filming instead of the bitter commentary his brain keeps supplying about how the other set makes this one pale in comparison. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That proves to be easier than he had thought it would be; the heat that the fire surrounding him emanates makes it almost impossible to think about much else.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He manages to wrap up the filming for his individual scene fairly quickly, chalking his efficiency up to his desire to leave behind the suffocating conditions he had been subject to while filming. He steps carefully over the arrows that form a circle around the space he’d been in and trudges over to where his members are gearing up for their own individual shots.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “That—” he says once he’s within earshot of them, “—was hot. Like, literally.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You did so well despite the heat, hyung. Good job!” Kai says encouragingly just as Taehyun mutters, “Please keep your germs away from me.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu shoots the youngest a grateful smile before stepping towards Taehyun and placing a hand on the nape of his neck. The redhead looks at him in a mix of confusion and wariness which quickly morphs into complete terror when Beomgyu pulls his face into the crook of his neck and keeps him there with the hand he has on back of the younger’s head, making sure to press him against the spot on his neck that glistens with residual sweat.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It doesn’t last for long—because Taehyun is stronger than Beomgyu can ever dream of being—but Beomgyu makes sure to revel in his mortified yelling and the litany of profanities that leaves his mouth in a continuous stream until he manages to break free from the shackle of Beomgyu’s arms.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu is ready to run for his life the second Taehyun regains control over his motor nerves but is saved by an intervention that comes in the form of their leader stepping in.  </em>
</p><p><em> “Kiddos,” Soobin begins, voice still heavily laced with sleep, “please, for the love of all things Huening Kai, stop. Where do you guys even </em> get <em> this much energy from in the </em> morning?<em>”  </em></p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu is about to enlighten him to the fact that he had been surrounded by actual flames not more than five minutes ago when a voice sounds from behind him—a voice that is unique to one person only. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Yeah, kiddos, can’t you see that you’re making our dear Soobinie’s blood pressure go ham?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu swivels on his heel, eager to retaliate with the retort he has sitting on the tip of his tongue. His throat closes up at the sight that greets him.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Woah, hyung,” Kai says wondrously. Beomgyu is inclined to agree.  </em>
</p><p><em> Yeonjun is a sight to behold. He has on what is perhaps the tightest shirt Beomgyu has ever seen—it presses against and stretches across his torso in a way that highlights the impeccable shape he is in and screams</em>, Look, I am fitter than you will ever be. <em> And </em> oh<em>, it’s made of </em> leather.<em> The black of the shirt is complemented by tight pants of the same shade, held up by an intricately crafted yet simple belt—black with the buckle outlined with a shiny gold. The outfit is what minimalistic furnishing would look like on a person, Beomgyu supposes, and god, does it look good.  </em></p><p>
  <em> It takes the four of them a full minute to absorb the entirety of Yeonjun’s new look but when the gravity of it all sets in, the praise flows unceasingly.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Hyung, I’ve never seen you look so good—what the hell?”  </em>
</p><p><em> “Damn, Yeonjun hyung, I’m not sure if I want to be you or be </em> with <em> you right now.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> “Wah, hyung, I didn’t think you had it in you—like, I knew you were attractive but this—this is something else.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun, ever since his days as a trainee, had always been a bit of a sucker for praise, and judging by the way he positively glows in response to the compliments says that he hasn’t changed in that aspect at all.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> As the other three continue to laud the oldest with affirmation, Beomgyu finds himself at a complete loss for words. His eyes scan the figure in front of him fastidiously, and as he finishes drinking in each and every detail of his appearance, he is left to wonder if his hyung had always been this gorgeous or if he’d been blind to his radiance all this time. He tries to convince himself that the heat that crawls under his skin is a result of being in close proximity to burning fire just minutes prior, and he could’ve written off as that too, but deep down, he knows better than anyone else that it isn’t because of that at all. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Beomie-yah.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu looks up to see Yeonjun staring back at him expectantly. A few strands of his carefully styled hair have strayed from the confines of the gel that had previously been keeping them in place; they fall into his angular eyes and make him appear deceptively younger than he really is and Beomgyu is once again left in awe of how wonderfully endearing their oldest can be. For the most part, Choi Yeonjun is a confident and daunting presence, but strip all of that away and you will be left with a young boy who is simply trying—sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding—to acclimatize to the pains of adulthood—a boy who, just like any other, needs to be told every now and then he’s doing okay. Beomgyu plans to stick around and do just that for as long as his heart beats and his lungs breathe.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You haven’t said anything,” Yeonjun continues with a bashful smile. Shyer still, he adds, “you know your opinion means the most to hyung.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You look beautiful, hyung,” Beomgyu breathes after a short pause, and really, he hadn’t meant for so much intensity to slip through. Where had all of it even come from, anyway? Beomgyu decides that is a puzzle he will decode later, when he’s lying in his bed at night and has the time to ponder on the mysteries of the world.   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun looks the slightest bit taken aback by the sincerity his voice holds, but he manages to recover swiftly; the shock on his face is replaced by satisfaction as he smiles at all of them in gratitude.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “My hunger for compliments has been sated,” he informs loudly. “Oh, this is the outfit for tomorrow, by the way—the stylists asked me to try it on once and I wanted to show you guys. This is my first time wearing something like this and I wanted your opinions,” he concludes with a sheepish laugh.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Eventually, after another round of softly but surely uttered assurances, the five of them are forced to scatter: Taehyun is beckoned for the recording of his individual scene, Soobin and Kai are ushered to the makeup artists for final touch-ups before they start filming for the group scenes and Yeonjun is told to change into his outfit for the day.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu is the only one that stays behind—he had been given specific instructions to cool down and hydrate before joining the other two for makeup. And really, he could have done whatever he pleased with this rare opportunity to rest—he could have done as told, drunk water and fanned himself until his body temperature returned to normal, he could have listened to a few songs, he could have reviewed his footage once again.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But instead, he decides to watch Yeonjun as he retreats into the distance. He watches as he stops near a group of stylists and gives them a thumbs-up. He watches as his eyes crease with happiness when the stylists return the gesture. He watches as he walks off with them into one of the small dressing rooms and disappears from his line of sight.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Perhaps that is when the seed of longing had been planted within him.  </em>
</p><p><em> So perhaps </em> that <em> is where it all starts. </em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Beomgyu has heard of a saying before. </p><p>The one that goes, <em> ‘Never meet your idols.’ </em> Let them remain as pretty faces on a screen, as beings that seem so very untouchable, bathed in the glitz and glamour that comes with the celebrity lifestyle. Admire them from afar, always at a distance, because if you bridge that gap, the expectations you have built for years coming will shatter. And with it comes crumbling down the perfect perception you had of this individual you have admired for so long, because when there is no distance between you and them, it becomes harder to ignore the cracks in their façade—a dead giveaway to the realisation that maybe they’re not nearly as flawless as you had thought them to be. Your world shifts on its axis. Nothing quite makes sense anymore. </p><p>What then, is one supposed to do, when a person becomes your idol <em> after </em> you meet them? </p><p>Beomgyu wonders idly, as he gazes at a laughing Yeonjun from the opposite end of the practice room, if the universe has an answer for that.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>Beomgyu often hypothesizes that his life would</em><em> have been</em> <em>very</em><em> different from what it is now had his situation been different.</em></p><p><em> When he was accepted into the company, he had been told that he was already part of the first ‘draft’ of the debut line-up, and it had taken him a minute to process the revelation. Beomgyu will admit, his audition was impressive (and he is completely entitled to the self-praise, because he had spent three months preparing for the two minute clip he had sent in) but he doesn’t think it was impressive enough to land him a spot in the </em> debut line-up <em> for </em> BigHit entertainment’s <em> newest group. They must have seen something in him that he doesn’t see in himself. Nevertheless, the notion leaves him breathless, giddy, nervous and elated all at once.  </em></p><p>
  <em> But, as the time he spends at the company gets progressively longer, he thinks that it would have been better if he had been a regular trainee with an uncertain fate. Because, Beomgyu thinks, as we wipes away his tears harshly, there is nothing more heart-wrenching than acquainting yourself with the momentous feeling of being on top of the world and getting to bask in it for all of two minutes before you lose your footing and go tumbling down. There is nothing more cruel than having your fingers close in around your dream and feeling the weight of it in your palm, only to have it ripped away a millisecond later. There is nothing more crushing than tasting success but having it doused by a dash of bitter medicine just when the taste begins to settle on your tongue.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So yes, Beomgyu would rather that he were a regular trainee. Because when the one light that keeps your world aglow goes out, the darkness is terrifying. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He has found himself swimming in this darkness more often as of late. (Drowning would be the more accurate term, the dramatic part of his brain supplies.) </em>
</p><p>
  <em> This time around, monthly evaluations are the chains that wrap around his ankles and drag him deeper into its depths. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It is the month of February, which implies two things—the first is that it marks two months since his arrival at the company, and second being that it is freakishly cold.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands in an effort to warm them but it proves to be futile—the material of the shirt is far too flimsy for weather conditions this harsh. A gust of cold air blows through the window under which Beomgyu has taken residence and the cold washes over him—it prickles his skin like icicles, sending another shiver down his spine. He wraps his hands around his knees and tucks them against his chest, burying his head in the space between them. He hopes that the sobs that tear their way from his throat aren’t as blatantly audible to the rest of the world as they are to him.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The words echo unceasingly in his head, like needles to his brain, and everything hurts—his head, from all the crying and stress, his ankle where he had twisted it slightly, his hipbone and shoulder that had borne the brunt of the fall when he went tumbling onto the cold hardwood floor of the practice room, and most importantly—his fragile heart.  </em>
</p><p>“Beomgyu-ssi,” <em>they had said after an awkward, stifling silence during which Beomgyu had picked himself from the floor with much difficulty. No one had even made a move towards him to help him up. </em>“You are, without a doubt, <em>good</em>—that’s why you’re here. But I’m afraid I don’t see any improvement or growth since last month’s evaluation.”</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu remembers how hard it had been to breathe after that. It always is difficult to breathe when your heart is caught in your throat. There, standing alone in the center of the room on a throbbing ankle, with the trainers’ disdainful eyes on him and the trainees at the back with their respectfully averted gazes and stolen glances, Beomgyu had never felt so exposed—so bare.  </em>
</p><p>“We know you’ve not been here for long. But we have high expectations for you, and as of now, you aren’t meeting them. Something has to give if you want to make it out there, Beomgyu-ssi.”<b>  </b></p><p>
  <em> The door of the practice room opens.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu’s eyes widen. He doesn’t even sneak a glance to see who it is, too busy trying to dry his tears with the sleeve of his shirt. Hopefully if he manages to attain some degree of presentability, the person intruding his pity party would be willing to overlook the fact that he was sitting on the floor, of all places.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Predictably, it doesn’t work. The threads that have come loose from the stitching near the cuffs of his shirt stick to the dampness under his eyes and he is sure he ends up looking even worse than he did before. When he comes to realize that there is simply no erasing the fact that on this fine February evening, he is nothing but a mess, he chances a glance upwards.  </em>
</p><p><em> Of </em> course <em> it has to be Choi Yeonjun.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Perfect, untouchable, glorious Choi Yeonjun. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He is on his phone, but even with his head angled downwards, Beomgyu can discern the outlines of a smile glowing with pride. His black hair, damp with sweat despite the weather, falls into his eyes—he looks youthful, happy, bursting with life. Beomgyu thinks he is beautiful.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Choi Yeonjun looks up then, and their eyes meet. The radiant smile slides off his face, making room for concern instead, and for a moment he simply stares at Beomgyu with his eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement.   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu curls into himself further and fiddles with the loose threads of his sleeves with the simple motive of keeping his hands occupied lest they start shaking from being subjected to such close scrutiny. The movement seems to bring the other boy out of his reverie, and possessed by both worry and curiosity, he takes cautious steps towards where Beomgyu is tucked away in the corner of the corridor.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He slows to a stop in front of him, and for a minute he simply dithers, clueless as to where to go from there. Beomgyu finds it laughably ironic—the great Choi Yeonjun, always so sure of himself, reduced to a ball of hesitance simply because of a small boy with too many tears to keep to himself.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The older boy kneels to his level then, and the action surprises Beomgyu into widening his eyes. Yeonjun is far too close for his comfort, but as he tries to scoot away and put a reasonable amount of distance in between them, he finds that his back is already plastered firmly against the wall.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun pays his discomfort no heed and instead, he says, “Why are you sitting on the floor?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There is no malice or judgement in his words, nothing but genuine inquisitiveness. His head is tilted in child-like curiosity, and Beomgyu finds this display of innocence from a person he knows nothing about far too endearing to be considered normal.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu has formed a flippant reply in his head but when he is about to speak it into existence, he discovers that his mouth has gone dry from all the crying. He runs his tongue over his lips to give them some moisture and tries again, but it is for naught. The boy in front of him catches onto his struggle; his eyes widen and with a small, “oh!” he reaches into the bag he has slung casually over his shoulder and pulls out a bottle of water that is slightly chilled, if the condensation on its surface is anything to go by.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Here,” he says with a kind smile, “drink.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu accepts it with both hands, acknowledging the older’s generosity with a grateful bow of the head. The water feels like a godsend as it trickles down his throat and washes away its dryness. Once his thirst has been slaked, he carefully screws the cap back onto the neck of the bottle and wipes his mouth with his shirt before garnering the courage to look up at the older boy once again.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> When he finds his voice, he mutters, “Thank you.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun gives him a pleased little grin in response before his expression morphs into one of curiosity yet again. “Well? You haven’t given me an answer. Why are you sitting on the floor?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Um,” Beomgyu mumbles, “I just wanted to get out of there and didn’t know where else to go.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun hums in acceptance. “And how’s your ankle?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’m too upset to think about the pain,” Beomgyu laughs nervously.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The boy nods, albeit with a slightly reproachful frown, before he speaks again, “And why are you upset?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu looks at him as if he’d grown another head. When he finds no contempt on his face or in his eyes, he replies slowly, “Did you not see how grandly I messed up back there?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I did,” Yeonjun replies simply. “So?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu gapes at him in utter disbelief. “Yeonjun-ssi, I toppled onto the floor with less grace than an ostrich. I made a fool out of myself in front of the trainers and all the other trainees—they probably think I’m the most uncool person to have walked the earth and most importantly, if I mess up even once in the future they’ll most likely pull me out of the debut line-up and I—”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He doesn’t get much farther than that—his tear ducts, which have decided to work in full swing now—won’t allow him to, and so he settles on nuzzling his tear-streaked face into the space between his knees again. They stay like that for a while, stewing in the silence that is broken only by Beomgyu’s sporadic sobs.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That is, until, he feels calloused fingers gingerly taking a hold of one of his hands. He looks up in alarm and through his tears, manages to make out that the boy in front of him now holds his hand in his own larger one.  </em>
</p><p><em> “Do you know,” Yeonjun begins quietly, “that during my third monthly evaluation, I slipped and fell—much worse than you did, I’ll have you know—and dislocated my elbow? The trainees back then weren’t nearly as forgiving as they are now—everyone laughed their hearts out until they realized that I was actually injured. And for those few seconds I spent splayed out on the floor in crippling pain, I remember thinking, </em> This is it. This is where my journey ends. <em> But that wasn’t the case, obviously—it was only the beginning, if anything, and now…”  </em></p><p>
  <em> “You’re BigHit Entertainment’s legendary trainee?” Beomgyu supplies with an almost imperceptible smile, but a smile nonetheless. The anecdote is slightly difficult to digest because in Beomgyu’s mind, a time in which Choi Yeonjun wasn’t the godly specimen that he is now doesn’t exist. Still, he acknowledges what Yeonjun is trying to do by delivering a soft squeeze to his hand. Beomgyu humours him, much like how the older is humouring him by putting up with his tantrum. Yeonjun squeezes back.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Yeah,” he laughs, embarrassed but with a hint of pride, “that. Either way, what I’m trying to say is—I know things are tough, and I know that it seems like they’re never going to get better, but that is never the case. Take it from me, I’ve been exactly where you are—I end up like that every once in a while now, even. But every cloud has its silver lining, you know? And I know—I know that isn’t the most profound, life-changing advice or anything but just...trust me, alright?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu wipes at his cheeks with his free hand before nodding at the boy in front of him. Yeonjun looks satisfied with his reaction, and so he leaves it at that. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Choi Beomgyu, was it?” he inquires then, his smile growing in size when Beomgyu glances at him with unconcealed surprise. “I pay attention,” he explains, puffing his chest proudly, before his voice takes on a softer edge. “Do you want me to walk you back to the dorms?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu shakes his head in denial. “I appreciate the offer, Yeonjun-ssi, but you’ve already done enough for me. And besides, I think I need a few more moments to just...emote.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun grins at him, and it’s a cute little thing—his eyes crinkle in amusement and his plush lips stretch into a smile that doesn’t display all of his teeth fully. Beomgyu is enamored by it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He reaches up a hand to ruffle Beomgyu’s hair fondly, then, and the action has a funny but welcome warmth blooming in his chest. If he’s being truthful, Beomgyu doesn’t quite know what to make of it. Instead of ruminating on it, he smiles up at the older, hoping to express at least a fraction of the gratitude he feels. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Oh, and before I go,” Yeonjun says, slipping the bag off his shoulder fully. Beomgyu looks on, puzzled, as the boy wordlessly shrugs off the jacket he has on top of his hoodie. His confusion then melts into endearment when Yeonjun drapes the jacket over his shoulders, making sure to wrap it firmly around his frame before pulling away with a tenderness in his eyes that Beomgyu hasn’t seen before. He has seen hard determination, unbridled happiness, suppressed annoyance and a lot of other things, but never that.  </em>
</p><p><em>He has always </em>seen<em> Yeonjun, and a hope blooms in his chest—that perhaps from now on, Yeonjun will start </em>seeing <em>him too. </em></p><p>
  <em> “You need it more than I do,” Yeonjun tells him. “You’re shivering, Beomgyu.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “But—” Beomgyu begins to refute but is shut down immediately.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I won’t take no for an answer,” Yeonjun says, firm but with an edge of softness to it that has Beomgyu melting. “You can give it back to me during practice tomorrow,” he adds with what Beomgyu supposes is a wink (it isn’t, really. Both his eyes close all the way. It is maddeningly adorable). He takes a look at his watch, then, and all of his precious suavity gives way for panic when he registers the numbers blinking back at him.  </em>
</p><p><em>“Shit, Soobin’s</em> <em>going to kill me,” Beomgyu hears him mutter under his breath before he looks back up at him contritely. “I’ll really have to get going now—I have a friend waiting for me. Get home safely, okay?” </em></p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu nods in acquiescence—he could deny it as much as he’d like, but he knows that he’s grown far too accustomed to the older’s presence in the fleeting ten minutes he’s spent with him. There’s nothing that can be done about it, though, so he watches wordlessly as Yeonjun gets to his feet and looks down at him with one last reassuring smile.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu briefly wonders, as he watches him walk away, if Choi Yeonjun will remember him when he makes it big.  </em>
</p><p><em> So, if he were to be completely, entirely truthful, </em> that <em> is where it all starts. </em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There is nothing quite like coming back home after a long day. </p><p>Practice had been especially challenging that evening; perhaps his mind had been elsewhere, or maybe it was because of something else entirely, but Beomgyu had found himself fumbling with steps which, on a good day, he would probably be able to execute in his sleep. This little development had instilled in him a sense of paranoia that had driven him to practice the same routines from start to finish two times each. At the end of it all, he had crumpled onto the floor, weighed down by the exhaustion and stress and all of the other things he feels when he gets into one of these moods. </p><p>Soobin, Taehyun and Kai had already taken their leave much earlier, leaving the two major overachievers of their group to do their thing. This is how they operate—the three of them know that when Yeonjun and Beomgyu work, they <em> work. </em>There is no talking them out of it, and so they leave them to their devices, trusting them (but not entirely) not to burn themselves out.</p><p>“I told you,” Yeonjun had said mildly to the undignified heap on the floor that was Choi Beomgyu, “that it wasn’t a good idea. But nooooo, heeding hyung’s advice would permanently dent your pride now, wouldn’t it?” In spite of all of his jesting, he had handed Beomgyu a chilled bottle of water and a towel for his sweat, and Beomgyu had made a garbled sound of acknowledgement to relay his thankfulness. Yeonjun had forcefully sent him home after that, telling him that he would stay back for a little longer, not to practice but simply because he was in the mood to dance. </p><p>Beomgyu had dismissed all thoughts of, <em> You’re like, the coolest person ever, </em>in favour of bidding him farewell and warning him against staying out too late before taking his leave.</p><p>And now, as Beomgyu drops his bag precariously by the doorway and heads straight to his room, he feels at ease again.  </p><p><em> This is home</em>, Beomgyu thinks as he steps into the room and breathes in the air around him—air that is tinged around the edges by the scent of the fabric softener they use for the sheets, of Soobin’s faint cinnamon cologne mixing with Beomgyu’s stronger citrusy one, of the earthy smell of soil left over from when Soobin must have repotted Palm and Herb. The sheets on the lower bunk are straightened neatly whereas the upper bunk is a complete mess from when Beomgyu had left it undone in the morning. The fancy remote control toy car that Taehyun had gifted him on his birthday is nestled comfortably in one corner of the room, its front squished against the wall from the time Soobin had driven the car into it and left it there. The remote lies forgotten on the singular cluttered desk in the room. Kwon Jin Ah’s ‘Consolation’ plays from the phone that has been discarded on the bed, wrapping him up and carrying him away in its melody. <em> This is home.</em></p><p>The odd coalescence of scents from the room mingles with the delicious fragrance of buldak ramen that floats in through the crack where he had left the door ajar, and from the smell alone Beomgyu can picture what the dorm looks like at the moment. Taehyun would be hovering over the stove, waiting as patiently for his noodles to boil as his post work-out hunger will allow. Kai would be there too—because where there is Taehyun, a happy little Kai will follow—blasting some Troye Sivan or Shawn Mendes song, most likely, and channeling his energy into making the ramen boil faster. His antics probably bring a smile onto Taehyun’s face, which he will try to hide because he’s emotionally constipated like that. Instead, he will chide Kai for his hyperness and grouse about how he doesn’t have the energy to put up with his shenanigans. But he will also stop Kai by looping his arm around the younger’s when he makes a huge show of leaving the kitchen since his <em> ‘presence is unwanted,’ </em>and he’ll keep him anchored there, and then the two of them will watch as the noodles cook, attached at the hip and enveloped by a companionable silence save for the music playing softly from Kai’s phone. </p><p>The image brings a fond smile to Beomgyu’s face. He has always admired the dynamic the two youngest share. They are connected by something that is invisible to the rest of the world—something that binds them together and compels them to gravitate toward one another unconsciously. </p><p>Soulmates, he thinks, is the word for it.  </p><p>Speaking of, Beomgyu watches as who he supposes is his own soulmate steps out of the bathroom and into the room, his aqua blue locks shimmering under the soft white light that hangs overhead. </p><p>“Has the obsessive overachiever’s perfectionism exhausted itself for the day?” Soobin jests with an amicable smile as he steps towards the bunk bed and settles onto the lower one, stretching lethargically and letting out a sigh of satisfaction when his joints pop. </p><p>“Hag,” Beomgyu mutters under his breath. Soobin tosses a sock at him. </p><p>He makes his way towards the older then, more than ready to collapse onto him in one fell swoop, but is stopped when Soobin holds out his hands in front of himself defensively. </p><p>“What?” Beomgyu asks, displeased. </p><p>“Don’t even think of coming anywhere near me with all that sweat on you,” Soobin warns from behind his makeshift shield. </p><p>Beomgyu huffs in vexation—he has half a mind to deposit himself onto the older simply to spite him but decides against it, seeing that the matter would most likely end with him on the floor. </p><p>“I can after a shower, though?” he asks instead, hopeful. </p><p>“Yes,” Soobin answers easily, lowering his hands with a bit of hesitance, which Beomgyu understands completely, because this is the volatile Choi Beomgyu he’s dealing with. “I’ve already picked out some fresh clothes for you to wear after. They’re hanging on the hooks behind the bathroom door—I’ve put up a towel there too. Now shoo, you pesky little gremlin.” </p><p>Beomgyu blows him a kiss in gratitude, in reply to which Soobin pulls a face. He laughs at the older’s antics as he weaves his way through the assortment of things on the floor and enters the bathroom, shoulders light and smile bright. He is always dismissive and flippant with his roommate on the surface, but nothing can cloud the warmth he feels for Soobin on the inside. And it’s good this way—Beomgyu doesn’t have to explain himself, because Soobin knows his heart, perhaps better than Beomgyu does himself. He’s a little amazing like that. </p><p>Rooming with Soobin has proved to be one of the most wonderful experiences in Beomgyu’s life, although he’d never admit to that aloud. The living arrangements they follow now had been established like this: they had decided on roommates on their own, making sure to take into consideration who works best with who, and that had left them with the following results: Soobin with Beomgyu, Kai with Taehyun, and Yeonjun with a room of his own. That wasn’t to say that Yeonjun didn’t get along with the others as well as they did with each other, not at all—it was just that there was the matter of who would get the third room—which was both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at it—and Yeonjun was more than willing. Besides, he never really does stay alone, because more often than not, Kai would invade the room Beomgyu and Soobin share with the claim of, <em> “Your room’s the one with the aircon—it’s much colder!” </em> when in reality Beomgyu knows that he just wants to be with Soobin. </p><p>And so Beomgyu gets kicked out of his room at least once a week, and he has to trudge down the hallway to Yeonjun’s room in the middle of the night, requesting with his sleep-laced voice if the older could<em> scoot a little, hyung, Hyuka stole my bed again. </em>And he goes to Yeonjun each time, owing to three factors: the rickety old door to Taehyun and Kai’s room is terribly creaky, Taehyun is a light sleeper and Beomgyu doesn’t have a death wish. </p><p>While roommates were picked by choice, they had decided to turn to other methods for determining who gets which room.</p><p>The age hierarchy is perhaps the most efficient deciding factor apart from rock paper scissors in the cruel, unforgiving world they live in, and well, rock paper scissors is far too reliant on fate for a decision as mammoth as this one. </p><p>(Taehyun had pointed out that it was also completely up to fate that Soobin and Beomgyu happened to be born in the years preceding his birth year, but they’d waved him off with cavalier flaps of the hand.)</p><p>And it all works out perfectly in favour of Soobin and Beomgyu, who are both older than Taehyun and Kai, and Yeonjun doesn’t really care about which room he gets as long as he has a warm bed to sleep in at the end of the day—and so, they end up with the room with air-conditioning. </p><p>It’s just as well that he stays with Soobin, because while Beomgyu loves the other three to pieces—loves them more than he loves himself—he knows that no one understands him the way Soobin does, and no one understands Soobin the way he does. He often thinks they were made specifically for each other that way. </p><p>Beomgyu smiles as he pulls on the sweatshirt Soobin had kept out for him—a smile with an abundance of fondness tucked into it—when he sees that it is one that belongs to Soobin. He checks his appearance once in the mirror to make sure that the little bit of makeup he had on previously had come off properly, and with that he leaves the bathroom, one hand occupied with towelling his hair dry. </p><p>The minute he steps into the room, he is hit with the chill of the air-conditioner and as he breathes in deeply, he thinks that there is no sensation that can compare to this. </p><p>When he opens his eyes, he sees that Soobin is already looking back at him from where he is wrapped up comfortably in his bed. When Soobin sees that he has caught his attention, he scoots towards the wall to make room on the bed in a wordless invitation which Beomgyu gladly accepts. </p><p>He tosses his towel carelessly onto the floor—a terrible, terrible habit that he has very unfortunately picked up from his roommate—before climbing onto the bed and depositing himself perfunctorily into Soobin’s waiting, open arms. Almost magically, the residual tension in his muscles that the hot water hadn’t been able to erode fizzles away, and Beomgyu relaxes entirely onto the warm body below him. </p><p>“I’m torn between informing you that you’re crushing me and just letting myself pass away from shortage of breath simply because you look so peaceful. I’m heavily inclined to do the former, though.” </p><p>Beomgyu makes a small noise of acknowledgement in the back of his throat but makes no move to reposition himself. Still, he makes his contribution by showing no resistance when Soobin clucks his tongue in annoyance and manhandles him to lie better atop his body. He hums contentedly when Soobin pulls one of his hands towards himself, hooking his fingers around Beomgyu’s before settling their loosely intertwined hands on his chest. They let the silence wash over them, then, because they have reached a point in their friendship where they don’t have to make use of words to express their love for each other. </p><p>There is comfort in the spaces between Soobin’s long fingers, Beomgyu muses as he fiddles with them. And when he replaces those spaces with his own and presses his palm against Soobin’s larger, warmer one, he feels at home.</p><p>They fall asleep like that, hands twined and legs tangled, oblivious to the world beyond their little room.</p><p><em> This is home, </em>Beomgyu thinks as he slips out of consciousness.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Soobin had once told him that his favourite flowers were sunflowers. Beomgyu thinks it makes sense, in a way. Soobin is someone who is filled to the brim with warmth. He is the sun, and those around him cannot help but be drawn in by the warmth he emits. They turn to him like sunflowers, basking in his radiance, and it only makes sense to like the people who love you. So yes, Beomgyu understands why Soobin likes sunflowers the most. It’s only fitting.</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Beomgyu, ever since he was a child, has always been guilty of loving both too easily and too much. </p><p>He would cling onto his mother even past the age at which you were typically supposed to grow out of it; he would trail after his father and ask him questions about his daring profession with wide, innocent eyes swimming with endless curiosity; he would tail his brother incessantly—even after being pushed away on several occasions—just to spend a few moments <em> in </em> his company, if not <em> with </em>him. </p><p>Things stayed that way well into Beomgyu’s teenage years—and he suspects that the only reason they have changed now is due to the distance between him and his family—because it isn’t just a childhood habit that can be chucked easily—it is simply in Beomgyu’s nature to love. He was built this way, it is in his disposition, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. </p><p>But while he can be faulted for loving too many and too much, the truth of the matter is that Beomgyu does not love anyone the way he loves his members. And while he may not always verbalize the boundless affection that he feels for them, he hopes it shines through in the way he—on the mornings that he wakes up earlier than the rest and there’s still an hour to spare until they have to start waking up for school—retrieves Taehyun’s bunched up blanket from where it had been kicked to the foot of his bed and pulls it back over him until he’s all warm and snug; in the way he brushes Kai’s tangled locks away from his closed eyes before he leaves the room quietly to start on breakfast so that the others can wake up to the smell of pancakes permeating the warm air; in the way he neatly makes Soobin’s bed and arranges for him a set of fresh, comfortable clothes on the nights the leader stays back late for vocal practice; in the succinct messages of, <em> “Fighting, hyung, remember that I’m always on your side!” </em> that he finds the time to send to Yeonjun through all of his homework. </p><p>He feels different types of love for all of them; for Taehyun and Kai, there is this strong, irrepressible urge to protect. He might not be the most suitable person for the task—he is the smallest out of all of them, and emotionally, he is in shambles for the most part, but that certainly doesn’t stop him from trying to shield them from the horrors of the world. </p><p>There are many layers to the love he feels for Soobin. Most of it is adoration, another chunk of it is admiration, a lot of it is mutual understanding. Loving Soobin is a bit of a mess, but it is nothing compared to the emotional rollercoaster that is loving Choi Yeonjun. </p><p>Beomgyu thinks that the love he feels towards their oldest is constituted fully by reverence and admiration. He idolizes Yeonjun in a way he has never idolized any other before—he evokes within him feelings that Beomgyu hadn’t known he was capable of feeling. In Beomgyu’s starstruck eyes, no one compares to the supreme being that is Choi Yeonjun. </p><p>But even if he were to strip away all of the bias and view the matter at hand objectively, there is no denying that Yeonjun is an awe-inspiring human being. </p><p>Yeonjun is Soobin’s mother hen—the mother hen of the mother hen, if you will. The grandmother hen, Beomgyu thinks with a soft giggle. He babies the leader who always babies everyone else; he is the person Soobin goes to when he’s the one in need of reassurance rather than the one giving it.</p><p>For Taehyun, Yeonjun is one of the most influential figures in the boy’s life—Beomgyu has lost count of how many habits Taehyun has picked up from the oldest over the numerous years the two have known each other. Yeonjun’s effect on the boy is silent, hushed, but it resonates loudly in Taehyun’s, <em> I learnt it from Yeonjun hyung! </em></p><p>To Kai, Yeonjun is the perfect older brother. He lets Kai lean on him when he is low on energy, his fingers card through Kai’s hair whenever he is within reach in an act of pure fondness. In Yeonjun’s eyes, Kai is a mini version of him, despite the fact that the younger is not ‘mini’ in any sense of the word. He is Yeonjun’s baby brother. </p><p>And for Beomgyu... For Beomgyu, Yeonjun is the air one breathes on a bright spring morning. He is the warm fire one seeks solace from on a cold winter night; he is the whirring of an air-conditioner and the splash of cold water on a sizzling summer afternoon. He is the first rain of the season, the first snowflake that descends from the heavens. He is the sun, the moon and the stars. He is the universe. </p><p>For Beomgyu, Yeonjun is everything. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>It is the month of December, and they have yet another award show to attend. For this one, they’ve prepared a special stage of one of their seniors’ older songs, and it goes well, for the most part. In Beomgyu’s critical eyes, he had done horribly, but the others seem to be satisfied with the result, and he isn’t about to rain on their parade.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They drop by their seniors’ dressing room once their performance ends and they’ve caught their breath, and in the midst of the noisy hairdryers and the clutter of cosmetics clanging against each other, Kim Taehyung notices him and seeks him out.  </em>
</p><p><em>“Come here, Beomgyu-yah,” he calls out affectionately in that soft, deep voice of his. One long arm is outstretched, and Beomgyu’s breath hitches. He weaves his way through the stylists and makeup artists on shaky legs, his heart thumping in his chest, and the minute he’s within reach of the older, he is pulled into a warm hug. His senses are flooded with the natural scent of wood mixed with that of artificial cologne.</em> <em>“You did a good job. Keep your chin up, you hear me?”</em></p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu nods, overwhelmed. He can feel his ears turning red.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Hours later, when everything is over and done with and they stumble somewhat drunkenly into their tiny dorm, Yeonjun— despite the fatigue and tiredness—grins at him, playful.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What’s it like, being showered with so much attention by your idol?” he says, running a hand mindlessly through Beomgyu’s hair.  </em>
</p><p>I’m actually used to it<em>, is what Beomgyu thinks but doesn’t say, choosing instead to relish Yeonjun’s small expression of adoration. </em>Because this is exactly what it feels like. </p><p>
  <em> Instead, he smiles cheekily up at the older and replies, “Pretty damn great.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Later in bed, as he succumbs to the exhaustion that has settled in his bones, Beomgyu counts his blessings. There is a lot to repent in life, but there is just as much to be thankful for.  </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Taehyun announces, on one sunny Saturday morning, that he needs to establish another few layers of depth in his bond with his cat, Hobak, and so with special permission (including—but not limited to—profuse, relentless begging which they had kept at for so long that their unfortunate staff had been left with no choice but to concede) from the company, Taehyun leaves for his parents’ house bright and early in the morning and returns in the evening, armed with a furry little ball wrapped in a blanket in one hand and two baskets full of feline care in the other.</p><p>The remaining four welcome the new addition to their little family with no qualms whatsoever because the general consensus is that animals are far worthier specimens than humans will ever be, and Hobak also happens to be one of the most adorable cats in existence. </p><p>Hobak’s presence blends seamlessly into their dorm life, and it quickly becomes yet another constant that tethers them to their home, reminding them of the fact that no matter how much time they spend in their practice room or flying around the world, at the end of the day, this will always be their home. </p><p>The five of them take turns in feeding her and cleaning up the little corner that has now been reserved for her exclusively. For the most part, they can just leave her to her own devices and she would fare perfectly well, because most cats work like that. She has her moments though, wherein she is in need of love and attention, and for this she usually turns to either Taehyun—because he is a familiar presence—or Soobin, because apparently even animals aren’t immune to his magnetism. </p><p>She breathes life into their already lively dorm, since pets have a proclivity for making the world a better place. It is a welcome intervention in their exhausting lives. </p><p>The most entertaining facet of it all, however, has to be the fact that Taehyun is <em>allergic</em> to cats, and because of this, he simply cannot stop<em> sneezing.  </em></p><p>On one of their rare days off, Beomgyu awakens to the sound of his relentless sneezing. He trudges down the hallway, an amused smile plastered onto his sleep-warm face, and when he runs into the red-nosed younger leaning over the coffee machine in the kitchen, he makes it a point to tell him gravely, “I hope you know how brave you are for doing this. Thank you for your valiant contribution to the nation.” </p><p>As if on cue, Hobak leaps onto the counter gracefully, ignoring Beomgyu as she sidles over to Taehyun. “Thanks, hyung,” he manages in between sneezes.</p><p>The two of them are the only ones awake, and seeing that it’s going to stay that way judging by Yeonjun’s incessant snoring and the fact that it is shy of nine in the morning, they decide to watch a movie once they’ve finished preparing breakfast, for old time’s sake. </p><p>Beomgyu leaves it up to Taehyun to decide on the movie—which they have to do after agreeing begrudgingly that they have watched both Inception and August Rush far too many times for the experience to be enjoyable—and as the younger surfs the internet in search of recommendations, Beomgyu takes a moment to reflect on the past few days. </p><p>It has been a little over two months since promotions ended, and in this time, there have been the following developments in their lives: first, their dorm has accrued not one new tenant, but three others in the form of Soobin’s plants—the first two have been very creatively named Palm and Herb, and the third remains unnamed (Soobin had argued that since he had gifted it to Kai for his birthday, the nomenclature was the younger’s responsibility, which is a horrible decision, really, because if it were up to Kai, they would all be named Person #1, Person #2, and Beomgyu fears that they would eventually have to start referring to their third plant as Plant #3, which would leave them with three plants, all with terribly unimpressive names), and all of this has contributed greatly to bringing more excitement to their days. The air in the dorm is fresher, brighter and Beomgyu finds that he likes this change quite a bit. </p><p>Second, Soobin has been appointed as the emcee for a music show, and unsurprisingly, he is brilliant at it. He has been at it for not more than two weeks, but the way he carries himself would fool one into thinking that this is his calling in life. Beomgyu watches his interviews quite often, and each time without fail, he finds himself entranced by the practiced ease with which their leader executes his lines, by the power he possesses to create a comfortable atmosphere that makes the idols he’s interviewing feel at home, by the time and effort he takes to learn a little snippet of each group’s choreography just so that they can feel <em> seen.  </em></p><p>(Beomgyu had once witnessed Soobin practicing the gestures to a choreography with great concentration in the ten minute break they had in between practice, absorbed completely in the music video playing on his phone despite the heaving of his chest. He hadn’t thought it was possible for the love he feels towards their leader to deepen any further, but the sight had proven him wrong.) </p><p>Somehow, Soobin’s leadership skills shine through in the way he emcees, and all of this taken together has Beomgyu convinced that Soobin is the best emcee in existence. </p><p>(In Beomgyu’s—slightly biased, but mostly objective—view, Soobin is also the best leader in the world, but that is a story for another time.) </p><p>“Ah!” Beomgyu pipes up loudly with a snap of the fingers. The sudden outburst surprises Taehyun into jolting slightly, and Hobak emits a small noise of displeasure from where she’s curled up in between the two of them. “We should watch <em>Kimi no Na Wa.</em> You haven’t seen it, have you?” </p><p>Taehyun shakes his head lightly, looking mildly apprehensive of his newfound vigour, and Beomgyu grabs his unoccupied hand with wide, expectant eyes. </p><p>“Taehyunie, we absolutely <em> have </em>to watch it. Everyone has to have seen it at least once in their lives—it’s one of the stipulations for making it to heaven,” Taehyun rolls his eyes at his dramatics but patiently lets him continue, “You’re going to come out of it a changed person, I swear. Oh my god, I can’t believe you’ve been this uncultured all along—right under my nose, that too—and I didn’t do anything to change that.”</p><p>Taehyun pushes at his shoulder with no real force for the snide remark but pulls up a site with information pertaining to the movie’s storyline nonetheless. Beomgyu lets out a small sound of unadulterated joy when the younger admits that the plot sounds riveting, and so, teeming with excitement, they get the TV started. </p><p>It doesn’t quite go as planned. </p><p>“Do you think the scriptwriters of <em>Back To The Future</em> would be disappointed with the way the world is today?” Beomgyu questions as he stares forlornly at the static displayed on the screen. </p><p>“I don’t think so, I know so,” Taehyun replies, equally as forlorn.</p><p>They stay that way for a while, gazing at the screen with the hope that it will magically start functioning under the weight of their disappointed gazes. Predictably, that doesn’t work. </p><p>And so they stay that way for a bit longer, until a sleep drunk Yeonjun stumbles into the living room, looking more dead than alive. It takes him a moment to comprehend the situation at hand, and after his fifth time looking between the television screen and the two disheartened souls (plus Hobak) on the couch, he bursts into peals of laughter. </p><p>Taehyun and Beomgyu give him a minute to recover from his hysterical state and watch with unimpressed eyes as he walks towards them, dramatically wiping an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. They can’t amp up their reactions any further than that, though, because they know that in the end, it’s Yeonjun’s help that they’ll have to enlist to fix things. With much reluctance, they relay the same to him, and as predicted, it causes an inflation in his already massive ego. </p><p>“And you have the audacity to call <em> me </em> technologically challenged,” he teases. He strolls over to the where the TV is attached to the wall, retracts his phone from his pocket, and scrolls through it for a while with furrowed eyebrows. This continues for a bit, and Beomgyu can barely refrain from tapping his foot impatiently. Taehyun looks more bored than anything else, but they both try to be understanding and therefore manage to keep themselves quiet. </p><p>“Ah-ha!” </p><p>Beomgyu registers at Yeonjun’s look of triumph with anticipation and beside him, Taehyun sits up a little as well. </p><p>“I’ve got it,” Yeonjun elaborates. He looks up from his phone then, and the smile on his face is nothing short of devious. “But,” he says slowly, his grin widening with every passing second, “there’s a catch.” </p><p>The two of them groan at the exact same time, with the exact same amount of exasperation. Beomgyu would have taken a second to marvel at their synchronisation if he didn’t have a movie waiting for him on the other side of this ‘catch.’ </p><p>“What is it?” Taehyun inquires, disdainful.</p><p>“Oh, nothing much,” Yeonjun says airily, “all you have to say is <em> Thank you, Yeonjunie-hyung, whatever would we do without you? </em>See, simple as that!” </p><p>Beomgyu shares a look with Taehyun to see if he’s amenable to the request and the younger simply closes his eyes in resignation. They both turn to the oldest then, who stands in front of them with his hands planted on his hips and an eyebrow raised in expectancy. </p><p>“Thank you, Yeonjunie-hyung,” they chorus, sounding as dead as they feel, “whatever would we do without you?” </p><p>Yeonjun, in spite of the complete lack of enthusiasm on their part, seems pleased with their little display, and so with a small hum, he turns to the TV and its switchboard and puts the information on his phone screen to practical use. </p><p>After an agonizingly long few minutes of fiddling and shuffling, which Taehyun watches uninterestedly and Beomgyu watches with all the interest that Taehyun lacks, the TV screen glitches once, twice and then they find themselves staring at the Netflix homepage.</p><p>Now, as Yeonjun steps away from the screen so that they can see its functionality in its entire glory, even Taehyun looks impressed. Hobak purrs in acknowledgement too, and Beomgyu, well. Beomgyu is as confounded by the older’s innate knack for everything as ever.  </p><p>“Seriously,” Yeonjun sighs, complacent, as he strides towards the kitchen, “what <em> would </em>you do without me?” </p><p>Taehyun snorts and relays his thanks, and a beat later Beomgyu does as well. His heart skips a beat at the sincere smile Yeonjun gifts them in return before he disappears into the kitchen. </p><p>As the opening credits of the movie roll on the screen and the first few notes of one of the soundtracks float through the air, Beomgyu can think about only two things—how absolutely astounding Choi Yeonjun is, and how he will never be able to compare. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Introspection, Beomgyu thinks, is an interesting thing.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It is—like almost everything else in the world—both a blessing and a curse; on some days, it is his enemy, what with the negative thoughts that swarm his head and pull him into their recesses until it becomes a monumental struggle to do something as simple as breathe properly. The ordeal ends with him drifting—with much difficulty—into a fitful sleep, and depending on what the universe has in store for him, he wakes up feeling either better or worse than the night before.   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> On others, it is his friend—it helps him work through his problems calmly, reflect on the things he feels and uncover why he feels them, and all is well. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So sometimes what he needs after a long day is not an opulent bubble bath or an extensive therapy session from Soobin, but a moment to himself. Sometimes all he needs to do is lie in the softness of his bedsheets, stare up at the ceiling and soak in the quiet of the night. His background music is Soobin’s soft breathing from the bed below, and it serves as a sort of tether, something that ties him to his bed and ensures that he doesn’t stray too far in the land of thought. He absorbs the silence, takes the time to sort through the tangles of his mind, categorising them and filing them away into the different compartments he has visualised. Sometimes, he dwells on one thought for longer than he does on the others, letting it trickle down the crevices of his brain like dewdrops down a leaf in the early hours of the morning. He stays there for a bit, steeping in it and soaking its details before dismissing it entirely. And sometimes that is enough. </em>
</p><p><em> But then sometimes that doesn’t cut it, and what he needs instead is reassurance from something—some</em>one<em>—that isn’t the cacophony of voices in his head (the nice ones, anyway). So he climbs down the ladder of the bunk bed, ensures that Soobin hasn’t rolled onto the floor, leaves the room quietly and slinks down the dark hallway.  </em></p><p>
  <em> Slipping into Yeonjun’s bed with him and basking in his warmth has practically become second nature at this point, mainly due to the aircon predicament but also because Beomgyu gets like this more often than not.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He supposes it has ingrained itself into Yeonjun’s system as well, judging by the way he wraps an arm around Beomgyu’s middle and tugs him to his chest without a moment’s hesitation.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They stay like that then, but much to both his surprise and chagrin, Beomgyu finds that the itch under his skin is still as tangible as ever, when it usually melts into nothingness the minute Yeonjun’s warmth surrounds him.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He shuffles as much as he can in the restricted space within Yeonjun’s arms, which turns out isn’t much at all. It frustrates him to no end, because for the love of all things holy, all he wants is a few fulfilling hours of sleep.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Someone’s restless today.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu’s eyes snap upwards. He is met with Yeonjun looking at him.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He jerks back almost violently when he registers the distance—or lack thereof—between them, but is kept in place by the hand Yeonjun places on his nape.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What’s with the jumpiness?” he asks, sleep-addled still. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I—I just… hadn’t thought that you’d be awake,” Beomgyu answers quickly—perhaps too quickly judging by the brief raise and drop of Yeonjun’s eyebrow. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He hums nonetheless, rearranging his arms so that one of them sits nicely in the curve of Beomgyu’s waist whereas the other wraps fully around his neck. The position is awfully intimate, and Beomgyu is more than aware of this, but he does nothing to shake the older off, no matter how detrimental the closeness is for his poor heart. Yeonjun is clingy by nature, and it is never easy to remove something that’s always been there—Beomgyu knows this perhaps better than anyone else.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He fixates on a barely visible spot on the older’s pajama shirt from where he had spilled tteokbokki onto it during lunch earlier and wills his heart to slow down for just a moment.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Hyung,” he says quietly. “Hyung, are you awake?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun hums yet again and his voice doesn’t sound terribly sleep-laced, which Beomgyu takes as his cue to continue.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Do you think the fans liked the comeback?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And just like that, the question that had been weighing on his conscience since they wrapped up promotions two days ago is released into the quiet of the night.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> For a brief moment, neither of them says anything and Beomgyu suspects that the other had been taken by sleep yet again when he shifts the slightest bit.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I read a few things online,” comes Yeonjun’s cryptic reply, his voice perfectly level.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “And?” Beomgyu probes, inquisitive. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun breaks into a smile, all bunny teeth and happy eyes, as he says, “They loved it. There were the cynics too, which is to be expected, but overall everyone was really impressed by the shift in concepts—fans and critics alike. For a song with a sound that generally doesn’t appeal to the general public’s palette, I think we did just fine.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu takes a deep breath, sagging further into Yeonjun’s arms as the tension that had been keeping his body taut for so long melts into relief instead.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Loosen up, tiger,” Yeonjun mumbles sincerely, squeezing his waist in reassurance. “You did well.”  </em>
</p><p><em> “</em>We,<em>” Beomgyu corrects. “We did well.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> “Mm,” Yeonjun responds, pleased.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They let the silence wash over them in waves then, and Beomgyu finds that Yeonjun’s touch brings more comfort than panic now. He closes his eyes, sighing happily when the hand that was previously on his neck moves to card through his hair instead.  </em>
</p><p><em> “It just—” he starts again, “—it was just so </em> weird <em> not having them there, you know? It felt so wrong. And like, sure, performing was a little less stressful with the knowledge that thousands of people weren’t right there to hyperfixate on every movement I’d make but...the silence after every performance was pretty disheartening. And at the end of the day we’re performers, right? We perform for people. The audience is our lifeline—without one, we’re hardly good for anything.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu gives Yeonjun a moment to mull over his little monologue, instead focusing on the hand in his hair. Yeonjun has always been someone who’s larger than life, bursting with so much energy that some of it would always spill out of the vessel of his body, but he is always so gentle with the people around him. It reflects in the way his fingers play with Beomgyu’s locks so delicately—pushing them behind his ear, brushing them away from his eyes, simply carding through them and disheveling them before doing it all over again.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun exhales then, and Beomgyu takes this as his cue to open his eyes.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> From this close, Beomgyu can admire the finest details of the wonder that is Yeonjun’s face: the bags under his eyes, the plushness of his lips, the slope of his nose, the mole at the corner of his forehead that is visible only because the lock of hair that usually covers it sticks out in some arbitrary direction. He is breathtaking.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I get what you mean. But there are some things that you can’t change, you know?” Yeonjun mumbles, staring at Beomgyu’s hair while Beomgyu stares at him. “In spite of everything that was thrown at us—the delay, the last minute adjustments—we took it all in stride and did everything we could do given the circumstances. And it isn’t like we were performing for the walls or anything, though it might have felt like that at the moment. There were hundreds of thousands of people cheering us on from the safety of their houses. Besides, we’ve grown more this time around than we had during our last two promotion periods combined—both, as people and as artists. And you have to admit that there was a lot we got away this time that we wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu giggles at the memory of all of them chasing each other around on stage before rehearsals as their very debilitated staff looked on, helpless to do anything except hope that they exhausted their boundless energy eventually. Yeonjun grins at him.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I think the best thing you can do for yourself in situations like this is try and focus on the positives. It’s easier said than done, sure, but then again, there isn’t a single learning curve in this world that isn’t steep. It’s a process, learning to focus on the good—a long, taxing one, at that—but we’re no strangers to that kind of stuff, are we?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu shakes his head. His shoulders already feel lighter.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “So, this whole no live audience and interaction thing is a double-edged sword, then? In the way that it has its positives and negatives,” he says. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun nods in agreement. “A lot of things in this world are,” he adds softly. </em>
</p><p><em> Beomgyu takes a minute to digest that. </em> My feelings for you are a double-edged sword too, then,<em> he thinks as his eyes skim over Yeonjun’s face. </em>They make me feel like the happiest person on earth, but they also upset me beyond belief because you will never love me the way I love you. </p><p>
  <em> “Except in this case, one edge is sharper than the other,” he says.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun pulls back a little to look him in the eye properly.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “The positive end or the negative end?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “The positive one,” Beomgyu smiles at him. Yeonjun returns the gesture, content.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “That’s my boy,” he says. Beomgyu would like to pretend that that doesn’t make his heart skip a beat, but that would mean fighting a losing battle. He is simply incapable of denying the effect Yeonjun has on him, and it’s about time he starts getting accustomed to how the beat of his heart quickens and the blood in his veins rushes faster whenever he’s with the older. It would make things far simpler for him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The quiet envelopes them again—gently, lovingly. Beomgyu feels so at ease he imagines it would be possible to melt into the sheets and Yeonjun’s embrace entirely. The emotional baggage he had entered the room with has disappeared, leaving in its stead a feeling of contentment and muted happiness.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It seems that the exhaustion from the past few months is catching up to him now, now that the thoughts that had been the root of his restlessness have cleared up; he is mere seconds away from succumbing to a sleep that will most likely stretch for the next twelve hours when he feels fingers on his collarbone.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu’s eyes fly open.</em>
</p><p><em> “Hyung,” he whispers, voice catching in his throat as Yeonjun drags his fingers lightly along the lines of the prominent bone, “hyung, what are you </em> doing?<em>”  </em></p><p><em> Beomgyu can feel his breath quickening. This is unexplored territory—he is familiar with hair brushing, hand holding, waist squeezing and practically all the other forms of affection that he has experienced under Yeonjun’s soft hands, but </em> this<em>—this is something different entirely.  </em></p><p>
  <em> “Has anyone ever told you—” Yeonjun says quietly, the relaxed state he’s in contrasting starkly with Beomgyu’s distressed one, “—that you have a really pretty bone structure?” He chuckles softly. “Then again. Everything about you is pretty.”  </em>
</p><p><em>His fingers press down gently on the sharpest part of the bone, then. Beomgyu’s breath hitches. Yeonjun’s thumb slips past the collar of the loose shirt Beomgyu has on, tracing the skin there but never straying further. The younger has half a mind to grab his hand, guide it just a little lower, press it against his rapidly beating heart and say, </em> This is my heart. It beats for you. </p><p><em> The words remain lodged in his throat. They will probably never see the light of </em> <em>day. </em></p><p>
  <em> In hindsight, maybe he should have tethered his heart to the island of his rib cage the very first time he had seen Choi Yeonjun. If he had done it back then, it would have been a precautionary measure rather than a necessity, which is what it has grown into now. Maybe then the fragile little thing wouldn’t have been courageous enough to beat out of his chest the way it does whenever he’s around Yeonjun. It would’ve remained where it is supposed to be, in the confines of the little room that is his aching and hollow chest (in essence, and never in actuality, because his bleeding heart holds too much love and hurt for its existence to be dismissed just for the sake of a metaphor), beating slowly but steadily with the weight of the anchor tying it down. That would have been worlds nicer than the erratic rhythm it spirals into all the time.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But for now, he will allow himself to indulge in Yeonjun’s tender ministrations—in the hand on his side and the touch on his neck.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He will bask in the attention Yeonjun showers him with until a day comes wherein he’d have developed the degree of selflessness required to cut himself off from the older. He doesn’t deserve to be in the vicinity of someone so radiant, so passionate, so beautiful.   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He both dreads that day and awaits it.  </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When Beomgyu was a child, he would often cry in his bed at night about the vile older kids at the playground. On those nights, his mother would hold him close to her body in the dark and tell him that if a person was slightly rotten at heart, it was because God had taken some of their goodness and placed it in another soul if they were deemed incapable of handling it. “That’s why you’re so very good, my little Cookey,” she would say with a soft smile, patting at where his heart lay under his shirt. </p><p>Beomgyu supposes, then, that the emptiness that has taken residence in his chest now is because of the good that had been torn from him and placed in Yeonjun instead.</p><p>Because Choi Yeonjun is just so <em> good, </em>in every sense of the word. </p><p>It reflects in the way he’s an absolute deity on stage, in the way he imparts so much care to his younger members, in the way he looks at their fans as if they’ve hung the stars in the sky. </p><p>In the way that he hands Beomgyu a bottle of water and a towel now, when all of them are exhausted beyond belief after three hours of ceaseless dancing. </p><p>“Here,” he says through his sharp, irregular intakes of breath, “drink.” </p><p>Beomgyu accepts the articles gratefully, and perhaps the tiredness has messed with his cognition, because he spends a full minute simply looking between the two of them indecisively. </p><p>Yeonjun, taking sips from his own (less chilled, Beomgyu notes, and his heart swells at the miniscule detail) water, takes notice of his struggle and laughs at him once he’s quenched his thirst. He wordlessly plucks the towel out of Beomgyu’s slack grip, nudges the bottle towards him in a silent order to drink from it and then raises the towel to his forehead. </p><p>His touch is gentle as he swipes the perspiration from Beomgyu’s skin and out of his hairline. Beomgyu looks at him with eyes glimmering with unrestrained adoration. Here is his favourite person in the whole world, with copious amounts of sweat running down the sides of his face, and yet his first priority is still to ensure the welfare of those around him.</p><p>Yeonjun is like that, Beomgyu supposes. When the energy is sucked out of him, when he feels as if all of it has been drained from his body, Yeonjun is there to breathe the life back into him. With a small smile, a pat on the back, with small acts of empathy such as this one. If Beomgyu were stuck underwater, Yeonjun would be his oxygen tank. </p><p>“Better?” he inquires softly, breathing still ragged. </p><p>“Much,” Beomgyu breathes, eternally thankful. He slides the towel from Yeonjun’s hands and turns it over before bringing it to Yeonjun’s skin. “My turn,” he says with a reserved smile. </p><p>Yeonjun doesn’t protest at all, simply rearranges his limbs to sit more comfortably. Beomgyu watches as his eyebrows pinch together in mild irritation when he can’t seem to find a position that will provide his aching back some relief, and so he does the first thing that comes to mind—he draws his legs to his chest, makes sure they’re slanted at the right angle before pulling Yeonjun by the shoulders to lean against them. </p><p>“Better?” Beomgyu is the one who delivers the question this time, and the turn of events makes Yeonjun laugh. </p><p>“Much,” he replies naturally, the word tinged around the edges with the remnants of his laughter. </p><p>They grow silent as Beomgyu rids Yeonjun’s face of its sweat the best he can without actually facing him. Briefly, Beomgyu’s eyes meet Soobin’s across the practice room, and the older makes it a point to communicate through their bond how disgusted he is by their gratuitous display of affection. He sticks his tongue out at the older in return. </p><p>Beomgyu continues with his task. Somewhere in the process, him and Yeonjun sigh at the exact same time, and the snicker they let out at this is in perfect synchronisation too. It sparks a thought in Beomgyu’s over-analytical brain. </p><p>They are so similar, and yet so different. If Yeonjun is black leather jackets and stylish ripped jeans, Beomgyu is soft pink cardigans and checkered sweatpants. If Yeonjun is loud, unabashed laughter, then Beomgyu is shy smiles and soft chuckles. If Yeonjun is the soul, then Beomgyu is the body that houses it. Whatever Yeonjun is, Beomgyu is a mere shell of that.</p><p>Beomgyu conjectures that they might have been made together in the workshop of whichever force created them. The force must have set out with the objective of inventing two disparate souls, but then would have accidentally poured far too much greatness into one of them. Some of it would have spilled over, and clueless as to what to do with it, the force would have added that to the second soul. The two souls would then be sent down to earth, two years apart. The first was Yeonjun. The second was Beomgyu. </p><p>So, there <em> is </em> a little bit of greatness within Beomgyu, but it is what was originally supposed to be Yeonjun’s. </p><p>Beomgyu is convinced that his entire being is constituted by the remnants of what once belonged to Yeonjun. </p><p>If Beomgyu is great, then Yeonjun is greater. </p><p>If Beomgyu is warmth, then Yeonjun is fire. </p><p>If Beomgyu is a soft breeze, then Yeonjun is the raging storm that follows.</p><p>Beomgyu will forever be hidden in Yeonjun’s shadow, because it is the work of the universe—of fate, if there is such a thing. This is how things are supposed to pan out. This is how things will remain.</p><p>They were built this way. </p><p>There is nothing that can be done about it. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>In the month of August, they receive one of their first ‘Rookie of the Year’ awards, and Yeonjun isn’t there to witness it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They follow through with everything they are supposed to do like the professionals they are, though, because there is no room for excuses of any sort in the industry they are in—a hard, incorrigible fact of life that they had learned earlier on in their careers than was needed. They are children—even their oldest has barely come of age—but apparently the world spares no sympathy for even the youngest of souls. The piles upon piles of hate that lurk in the corners of the internet only augments this unfortunate truth. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> That evening, they perform as four, watch all of the other artists’ performances as four, breathe as four.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The entire night they are on edge—there is this palpable string of tension that draws their bodies taut and doesn’t allow them to relax, and it only tightens when the nominees for the award they’re eligible for are announced.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Somewhere among the deafening cheers from the excited audience and the background music that plays as a small compilation of the different groups in the category flashes on the screens around the venue, Taehyun’s hand finds Beomgyu’s. His palm is sweaty—Beomgyu’s is too. He squeezes. Beomgyu squeezes back. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It is only when their name is announced after a harrowing silence that the string of tension snaps. This is their breaking point. This is the most their bleeding hearts can take. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> They climb shakily onto the stage and Soobin executes their customary introduction with an audible quiver to his voice, but he doesn’t get much farther than that. Kai eventually reaches for the mic with an amount of valiance that Beomgyu one day aspires to attain.  </em>
</p><p><em> As he listens mindlessly to the echoes of their youngest’s steady, melodic voice, Beomgyu wishes fervently that the gods will forgive him for showcasing this sliver of weakness to the public—wishes perhaps even more fervently that the demon in his head will let this slide and won’t punish him once this is all over and he’s lying in bed later at night. </em> Just this once, <em> he requests beseechingly in his mind.  </em></p><p><em> Because the truth is: he doesn’t deserve to cry, and he knows this. He has not worked hard enough to earn himself the entitlement to do so—he hasn’t been at it long enough. He doesn’t deserve to shed the same amount of tears as Soobin does, or as Taehyun does, or as Kai would if he were to cry as well—and certainly nowhere </em> near <em> the amount that Yeonjun is entitled to. So he won’t—he’ll shed a bucket less. If they shed enough tears to fill five rivers, he’ll shed enough for four—maybe three. The amount of tears they shed now is proportional directly to the amount of work that has been put in, because those rivers contain not only the tears that fall ceaselessly from their eyes now, but also the sweat from twelve-hour long practice sessions running till the crack of dawn. They’ve been in the process of filling for a few years now.  </em></p><p><em> Beomgyu’s struck with a thought then. </em>Yeonjun.</p><p><em> He holds up a finger when the mic is in Taehyun’s clutch, mouthing, </em>There is only one thing I want to say. </p><p>
  <em> “And to Yeonjun hyung who isn’t h—here,” he manages in between tears, stumbling on a hiccup midway, “I’m so gr—grateful for you. Thank you.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> His voice cracks towards the end, and there’s so much more he would like to say, but the announcer is already taking center stage again. It’s for the best, he thinks, because he wouldn’t have managed with all the crying he’s doing, anyway. He nuzzles his tear-streaked face into the crook of Taehyun’s neck instead, choking on his tears.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Later, when they get home, Yeonjun pulls him into an impossibly tight hug. “I love you so much, my bear,” he mutters into his hair. Beomgyu can hear the tremble in his voice—the voice which holds five years’ worth of suppressed emotion. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I love you too,” he whispers back.  </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It is on a slow, casual day-off that Beomgyu tells Soobin about it all. </p><p>“I think I’m in love with Yeonjun hyung,” he says honestly. </p><p>“I know,” Soobin replies. He doesn’t even shoulder the trouble of gracing Beomgyu with a sidelong glance, because apparently the new game he’s downloaded is far more interesting than Beomgyu’s shell-shocking, jaw-dropping (in his perspective, anyway) admission.</p><p>And so sometimes telling your best friend that you’re gone for your <em> other </em>best friend is as uneventful and anticlimactic as that. </p><p>“Hyung,” Beomgyu prods. “<em>Hyung.</em>” </p><p>“What?” Soobin says, distracted. </p><p>“Hyung, look at me.” </p><p>“I look at you enough. What I don’t look at enough, however, is my phone screen, so I’d like it if you were understanding for once and left me to my devices. Literally.” </p><p>Beomgyu crawls over from his spot at the foot of the bottom bunk to where Soobin lounges against the headboard with Hobak curled up snugly on his stomach, squeezing with ease into the bracket his arms have formed in order to hold up his phone. </p><p>“Must you <em> always </em>do the exact opposite of what I tell you?” Soobin sighs, glancing at him through his peripherals reproachfully, which is the most attention he’s imparted towards Beomgyu in the past hour. </p><p>“Always,” Beomgyu promises with a giggle—the most provocative one he has in his roster, the one he knows makes the hackles of even the most patient of people rise. Soobin is an example of one of those people, and the exasperated sigh he releases is an illustration of how beautifully the tactic works. </p><p>“You’re going to knock my phone out of my hand if I stay on it any longer, aren’t you,” he says, his voice falling flat towards the end to signify that although his words are framed like a question, it is more of a statement because he simply knows Beomgyu that well. </p><p>“Mm,” Beomgyu agrees happily, closing his eyes as he tucks his head into Soobin’s neck. “I’m waiting, by the way.” </p><p>Beomgyu has a feeling that Hobak just <em> knows </em>that she’s going to be displaced from the position she has been in for the past hour, because she slides off Soobin’s abdomen and instead sequesters herself into the crook of the elbow of his unoccupied arm. Beomgyu takes a moment to mentally snicker at how Soobin has a cat on one arm and a puppy on the other in this position. </p><p>He smiles, complacent, when the <em> thud </em>that comes with Soobin’s phone being dropped onto the bed reaches his ears, followed by a strained exhale that has more exasperation packed into it than words could express. But Soobin tries to put the disdain he feels into words as well, because his sole objective in life is to remind Beomgyu every waking moment of how much he despises him.</p><p>“You are—<em>truly</em>—the bane of my existence,” he tells him, and Beomgyu hums, far from impressed. Soobin continues, unperturbed, “Is it your duty to make my life nothing short of a nightmare? Were you sent down to this planet with the singular instruction of, <em> Screw Choi Soobin over</em>?” </p><p>“That could be. Very plausible theory,” Beomgyu purses his lips in thought, chuckling happily when Soobin delivers a harmless smack to his shoulder. “I would sell your soul to the demon for one corn chip,” Beomgyu tells him sincerely after a brief pause. “<em>But</em>—I would also fight tooth and nail to get you back if anyone else tried to condemn you to the underworld.”</p><p>“Why would anyone try to condemn me to the underworld?” Soobin complains. “And if this is your way of confessing your love for me, I’m not flattered. Far from it, actually.” </p><p>Beomgyu climbs onto Soobin entirely then, paying absolutely no heed to his exaggerated wheezing. “Hyuuuung,” he says, planting his face onto Soobin’s shoulder unceremoniously, “you know I love you.” </p><p>“Do I?” Soobin grouses, wrapping an arm around him to tug him upwards so that he lies more comfortably on him nonetheless, “Do I really?” </p><p>“You do,” Beomgyu giggles, blowing a raspberry against the skin of his neck. Soobin humours him with a tolerant hum, and it ends at that. Beomgyu takes a moment to revel in the solace that Soobin’s embrace provides, because aside from all the banter and teasing, he will always be Beomgyu’s home away from home.</p><p>The warmth Soobin emanates is quite different from the kind that comes off of Yeonjun. (Beomgyu finds himself comparing the two because they are usually the people he goes to in search of that extra bit of love. For Kai and Taehyun, he tries to be a sturdy, trusty pillar of support to lean on since he’s older, but when he is the one who needs to do the leaning, he seeks out his hyungs.)</p><p>Soobin’s warmth is gentle, comforting, like the heat that spreads across your insides when you drink warm coffee and let it settle in your stomach. Yeonjun’s warmth is more on the stifling side—it’s all-consuming and overwhelming in the way it encompasses you and leaves you with no room to escape. If Soobin’s warmth is comparable to that spread by a warm drink, Yeonjun’s is the burn you feel on your tongue when it is too hot.</p><p>“Gyu.” </p><p>“Yeah?” </p><p>“Look.” </p><p>Beomgyu props his chin up on Soobin’s chest to meet his gaze. His heart softens at the sight that greets him.</p><p>Soobin’s eyes hold so much sincerity as they stare into his; Beomgyu isn’t sure if the shine that causes his eyes to twinkle is a result of the fondness he feels towards Beomgyu or a reflection of the stars in his own eyes. </p><p>Soobin swipes a thumb over his cheekbone as he mutters, “Yeonjun hyung would be a fool not to love you back.” </p><p>“Oh, hyung,” Beomgyu says forlornly. “He is already the biggest fool on this planet.”</p><p>Soobin’s hand finds his naturally, and he delivers a reassuring squeeze to it. Hobak purrs quietly as well, her own expression of wholehearted support. </p><p>“I’m okay with the way things are now,” Beomgyu whispers into the material of Soobin’s shirt, defeated. “We are on the same stage, even though I don’t belong there. We share the same space and breathe the same air, even though I’m not worthy. This is the most I can ask for, and this is the most I will get. I think it’s about time that I stopped wishing for more.” </p><p>And if he cries that night for a love that will never be his, Soobin and a distressed Hobak are the only witnesses to it. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>“What’s your creative process?” a producer asks during one of the many mock interviews they take partake in, in preparation for the multitude of them that they would have to accustom themselves to after their debut and in the years that follow. This, though, Beomgyu knows, is different. This is more of a test, a test to determine whether or not he’s cut out for the studio he had requested—a test to see if he deserves it or not. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “My what?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Your creative process. The process you undergo when you’re creating music,” the producer elaborates, and Beomgyu mentally applauds her for keeping any spite or incredulity out of her voice. If this really is a measure of his merit, and if he genuinely does want this studio, he should probably hold back on the unintelligent replies before they slip off his tongue, he realises.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Um. I—uh...” he wrings his hands anxiously. The woman waits, patient, though the slow tapping of her foot tells him that it won’t be long before that patience runs thin. “I—I don’t really have one, to be honest.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The woman raises an eyebrow. Beomgyu swallows, makes a commendable effort of reigning in the fear the indiscernible shift in her expression had sent coursing through his veins and continues, “I’ve always just holed myself into a room and worked on an idea when it came to me until the result satisfies me.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “And how long does that take?”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Anywhere from a day to thirty.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Only when it slips past his lips does Beomgyu realise how abysmal it sounds. </em>
</p><p><em> The producer heaves a sigh. </em> Uh oh<em>. Beomgyu has been here long enough to know that a reaction like that can have nothing but negative connotations. He looks on, teeth pressing down on his lower lip as the woman scribbles something onto the page attached to her clipboard. He suppresses the urge to sneak a glance at the writing, because he’s knowledgeable enough to know that if he were to be caught, that would land him in more trouble than he already might be in.  </em></p><p>
  <em> She looks up then but doesn’t say anything; the expectancy in her eyes tells him that he’s the one that should be doing the talking.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Um,” he tries again, tugging the sleeve of his cardigan over his hand to hide the uneven, bitten nails that embellish his fingers, “solitude?”  </em>
</p><p><em> She looks majorly unimpressed, and after two more questions that he’s able to answer with more eloquence—</em> <em>thank goodness—she sends him off with a stiff request of, “Send me any five pieces you’ve worked on. Your best, if you will. You have two weeks.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> And Beomgyu knows that this is his only saving grace, with how supremely he had messed up the interview. So he locks himself for a fortnight into the spare room in their dorm that no one uses, because he doesn’t really think any of the fifty-three pieces he has qualify as ‘best’ material. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And when he emerges, it’s with a triumphant smile and eyes shimmering with pride.   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’m getting my own studio!” </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Initially, Beomgyu is the slightest bit territorial about his studio, circumspect in entering it himself sometimes, simply because he is gripped by the irrational fear that any foreign presence will besmirch the novelty of the little room. He learns to overcome this possessiveness, eventually, but entry is granted and restricted to him and his members only—because everything that is his is theirs as well—and that’s where he draws the line. </p><p>Although it is primarily his, the others have grown so used to confining themselves to its walls that petty issues such as ownership have long been forgotten. </p><p>All of them use it for their own little things—Soobin, for the late hours of practice he has to put into learning his scripts; Taehyun, for when he’s itching to sing but doesn’t want to be heard, or when he’s in one of his artistic moods and is in need of a safe place where he can let the words forming in his head spill onto paper; Kai, for when he requires a space where he can let his musical genius take the reins or when he stays up to provide Soobin moral support because he’s selfless like that; and Yeonjun, for when inspiration strikes. </p><p>They share this little space that has become something akin to a shrine to them, similar to how they share everything else in their lives. But at the end of the day, the concord is that it <em> does </em> belong to Beomgyu first and foremost, because <em> he </em> is the one who fought tooth and nail to acquire it, he is the one who poured hours upon hours of work into proving his worth just so that he could call it—this small room that is hardly larger than a storeroom—his own. And so it rightfully belongs to him. </p><p>So ownership is taken into account sometimes, when Beomgyu slips into these moods, tapping into his artistic side and staying like that until his creativity exhausts itself temporarily. In times like these, they are reminded of the primary purpose the studio serves, and all of them file out obediently after issuing muttered warnings of<em>, Don’t stay up too late, Gyu-yah, </em> and <em> Remember to keep yourself hydrated, hyung,</em> before leaving him at the mercy of his thoughts.</p><p>He presses his back against the door after it closes behind them, looking around at the walls that have seen him at his most exposed. The plush blue sofa opposite to the door is ornamented by Molang, whom Kai has left behind in the exact same spot more times than Beomgyu can count (<em>It’s so that you don’t feel sad at night when you’re all alone, hyung! </em>he had said once, and Beomgyu had both tried and failed to curtail the adoration that threatened to burst from him at the admission). Along the wall above the small couch run small, unobtrusive cracks that serve as a testament to that one evening that Taehyun and Kai had spent alone in the room (at the end of which they had trudged up to him with repentance plastered across their faces and an apology of, <em>Sorry, hyung, we hadn’t meant for it to go so wrong. </em>Beomgyu hadn’t dwelled on the implications of the cryptic confession and what in the world <em>‘it’</em> was supposed to mean, and had instead let them off the hook with a light warning).</p><p>The shelf next to the couch is littered with all sorts of paraphernalia—starting from the chargers Taehyun always slings around his neck to a few of Soobin’s older scripts. The wrappers from some of Yeonjun’s favourite snacks lay discarded on the table in front of the couch. Beomgyu tries his best to suppress the smile that rises at the thought of how, even if they aren’t there physically, his members are always present in essence. It doesn’t work, and so he smiles anyway. He loves them with every fibre of his little being.</p><p>The translucent bear-shaped lamp tucked into the corner casts a homely glow across the small space—browns, goldens and muted yellows. This room is a reflection of his person, and he treasures it with all that he has. </p><p>Beomgyu walks over to his desk, a small but perceptible skip to his step, and settles comfortably on the chair, tucking his knees to his chest after. </p><p>The desk is cluttered—notebooks and pencils and loose sheets of paper occupy almost the entirety of it, save for the computer standing in the center of it all. Its screen displays a folder that is home to the very first few drafts of the song that is now called ‘Maze in the Mirror’ but was once referred to as ‘The Testament to My Lifelong Struggles.’ Beomgyu had intended for the hilarity of the moniker to take away from the sadness of the thing as a whole, but that hadn’t worked very well. </p><p>Maze in the Mirror is something that Beomgyu holds very close to his heart. Everyone knows the story behind its creation—it all happened when he was a trainee, trainees have a propensity for dramatics and lo and behold: a song was born. There is a lot more to it than that, obviously, but Beomgyu had had a feeling that the public wouldn’t quite want to hear his sob story any further than that, and so that had been the end of it. But it wasn’t really—it was only the start. </p><p>The spark which had come in the form of the very first idea of what he’d wanted the song to look like might not have been set off in this studio—since at the time he was nothing more than one among thousands of hopefuls who could only dream of one day garnering the achievements he has under his belt now—but the thick of the song making process had definitely taken place within its walls. </p><p>Beomgyu had—embarrassing as it was—cried while recording Maze in the Mirror. The song is meant to be a comforting pat on the back, a warm hug on a cold winter afternoon, an unspoken reassurance of<em>, You’ll be alright. You’ll find yourself one day. </em> Unspoken, but still there, lingering in the air that surrounds you, slightly out of reach but just about close enough for your fingertips to brush against it. It is a manifestation of all of the things that Beomgyu had desperately needed to hear in his darkest times but had ultimately never been told. </p><p>When he had commenced work on the song, it had been with the motive of providing himself an outlet for his perpetually overflowing emotions. But somewhere down the line, it had morphed into something a little more giving, a little more altruistic—a strengthening, comforting message to those who find themselves wading through the darkness that had once been an old friend to him. And so, standing in the producer’s studio, listening to his favourite people’s voices over the chords that he had recorded one quiet Thursday night, bent over his wooden best friend with an aching heart—something had snapped within him and thrown him for a loop of ugly, uncontrolled sobbing that hadn’t subsided until Yeonjun had pulled him into his lap and rocked him to the softness of sleep.</p><p>The memory sparks a newfound determination in him that has him pulling a sheet of paper and a pencil towards himself. He wants to provide relief to the people he loves so dearly—his members and fans alike—through his music. He has done it once, and he plans to do it for the rest of his life.</p><p>Writing lyrics is a funny little process. Writing, in general, rather, is an interesting thing. Beomgyu finds it endlessly fascinating—how it’s one thing to have an extensive vocabulary at your disposal, but how all that knowledge would be reduced to dust if you don’t know how to weave the words together just so and make something worthwhile out of it. Things work like that, he supposes. You could have the world at your fingertips, but it would all be for naught if you don’t know how to turn it on its axis. </p><p>He wonders if the words come to him this easily when he sits down with a pen, a paper and a plethora of emotions because he has so much trouble expressing himself otherwise, or if it’s the other way round; that maybe the reason he struggles with expressing himself in general is because the words that spill unceasingly from his fingertips consume so much of his being that once he’s called it a day, his tank runs emptier than usual.</p><p>It is like this that he surrenders to sleep—with that particular thought tinting his meaningless dream at its corners, an ache in his neck that he knows will develop into a painful crick in the morning, and a page full of scribbled analogies that he will take the time to sift through the next day, once he has stocked up on energy. </p><p>If he had stayed awake for just a moment longer, he would have noticed the door creaking open a few minutes after he falls asleep. He would have heard the light footsteps taken towards the desk, would have felt himself being picked up delicately and placed on the couch instead, would have also felt the jacket that smells like the stuff of his dreams being pulled over his frame. And most importantly, he would have been able to relish the kiss that is placed oh-so-gently on his temple before the footsteps recede and the door is shut once again. </p><p>But since the universe is his biggest adversary, he remains oblivious to it all, and instead, continues to dream.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>Sometime during the first quarter of the </em><em>year, Beomgyu receives a phone call and is told by a very excited Yeonjun to drop everything that he’s doing and drive over to the mall that he’s shopping at. And Beomgyu, in spite of all of his complaints and protestations, does exactly that because, first: he is an idiot, and second: he is an idiot in </em> love<em>. </em></p><p>
  <em> The manager responsible for their transport pulls up—in the car that Yeonjun and Beomgyu always travel in—in front the entrance to their dorm building, looking every bit as tired as Beomgyu knows he will feel once he comes out of this.   </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It takes them twenty minutes to arrive at their destination, and then another ten minutes to figure out which of the million entrances Yeonjun is stationed at. They eventually catch sight of him, though, solely because of how his neon yellow head of hair glints rather obnoxiously among a sea of muted browns and blacks. Beomgyu is certainly not the only person whose attention Yeonjun holds captive—this, he knows, from the furtive, transient glances that he sees people stealing as they flit about him, and judging by the way Yeonjun stands just a little bit straighter and angles his head just a little bit higher, Beomgyu can tell that he is cognizant of the attention he is on the receiving end of as well. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He brightens visibly when he sees the familiar car rolling up to where he stands. Beomgyu has to suppress a giggle at how Yeonjun—decked out luxuriously from head to toe in leather, his aura of untouchability cemented by the practiced, easy confidence with which he carries himself—breaks into the most radiant of smiles as he clambers into the car with two colossal shopping bags in tow, shattering any false perceptions the passers-by must have built of him. </em>
</p><p><em> “Hyung,” Beomgyu says, mildly apprehensive as he eyes the massive baggage that serves as a barricade between Yeonjun and him with how he has deposited them into the space between their seats. “I know you’ve always been a little... </em> excessive,<em>” he says, gesturing vaguely in the general direction of Yeonjun’s fresh purchases, “but isn’t this a bit too much?” A little inscription on the corner of the bag closest to him catches his eye then, and he frowns at it, “I didn’t even know XL shopping bags were a thing—what the hell? And anyway, what am I doing here? What is this thing that you deemed worthy of interrupting my nap for and why does it hold so much importance? I have so many questions and none of them are being answered right now, hyung.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> “Hello to you too, BG, I’m doing quite well on this splendid spring afternoon, thank you so much for your asking,” Yeonjun returns, satirical, as he rummages busily through one of the bags. The car begins to move again, and Beomgyu takes the time to settle against his leather-covered seat and watch Yeonjun’s borderline frantic shuffling.  </em>
</p><p><em> The blond lets out a victorious little, </em> “ah-ha!” <em> when he finds whatever it was that he was looking for. He pulls out a knitted sweater—black with white stripes—and then presents to him another identical one but with a black and blue colour scheme instead.  </em></p><p><em> Beomgyu stares at him, incredulous. “Hyung,” he articulates slowly, looking between the matching sweaters in either of Yeonjun’s hands and then back at him. “YJ, I swear to </em> God, <em> if you had me come all the way out here just to present your indecisiveness to me on a silver platter because you were too impatient to show me back at home, I am going to </em> sue <em> you.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun laughs, completely impervious to the prospect of having a lawsuit filed against him. He then softens into something quieter, gentler, as he bridges the gap between them with a smile on his face—the achingly tender ones that he reserves for Beomgyu specifically—and presses the blue and black sweater to his chest. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Yours,” he says earnestly. He holds up the other one to his shoulders then, and just as earnestly, goes, “Mine.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu’s mind blanks.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What?” he whispers.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I saw these on display together,” Yeonjun explains, suddenly bashful. The apples of his adorably round cheeks colour slightly—the lightest, loveliest shade of red rising to them—as they always do when he’s especially embarrassed, but Beomgyu doesn’t even have the heart to bully him for that—not with how the words have been stolen from him and he’s been rendered speechless like this. “And I could’ve taken just one of them but I… I thought you would look pretty in this one, and the idea of twinning just sounded really cute, so…”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu makes a strangled little sound in the back of his throat. Yeonjun tilts his head at him.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I called you out here because I was way too excited to show you these,” he admits with another reserved smile. “And I was thinking of treating you to some ice-cream since we’re out anyway. Hyung hasn’t been doing much hyung-ing lately, has he?” he concludes, his words softening in apology towards the end.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu doesn’t say anything in response, choosing instead to run his fingers along the material of the sweater in his clutch. It feels so soft under his fingertips, but it is nowhere near as soft as the state his heart has melted into, its hardened edges smoothing themselves out with the help of the pure, unfiltered adoration coursing through his veins. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Gyu-yah? Do you not like it?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu’s head snaps up with so much force that he suspects that he might have dislocated a bone somewhere. But frankly, he can’t quite bring himself to care—right now, his world has been boiled down to the rumbling of the car that he feels through the soles of his sneakers as it ambles steadily along, and Yeonjun’s disheartened pout. The corners of his lips are pulled down by the weight of the disappointment he must feel from the lack of response on Beomgyu’s end, and it is the most adorable thing ever.  </em>
</p><p><em> “Hyung, </em> no<em>,” he says vehemently, and he realises that that might not be the most context-appropriate reply, judging by how Yeonjun’s frown deepens further. “I mean—I love it. I really do, hyung, thank you. I was just thinking…” he says, and he hopes that his grin is as devious as he intends for it to be as he continues, “there isn’t a moment that passes without you thinking of me, huh? I practically live in your mind at this point.”  </em></p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu has always tried to comprehend what it is that compels him to incessantly nag at Yeonjun and push him to the end of his tether. He often wonders just what fuels his desire to annoy him to his wits’ end. Is it that establishing an atmosphere of playfulness allows Beomgyu to focus on something other than the blatant inadequacy that he otherwise feels when in the vicinity of the older? Or maybe it’s the fact that the lines of annoyance that mar Yeonjun’s otherwise gentle countenance make him seem more human than the otherworldly entity Beomgyu regards him as? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He can’t quite put a finger on it, but at least he has a coping mechanism that distracts him effectively from how lacking he feels whenever he is with Yeonjun.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun flushes perceptibly at his remark, and in a flurry, grabs the sweater from Beomgyu’s loose grip and stuffs it back into the bag along with his own.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You said you were sleeping before this,” he grumbles, an almost delirious edge to his voice. He is all faux irritation and austerity, when really, the red that envelopes the shells of his ears tells an entirely different tale. “Then go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get there. Until then, for the sake of my sanity, your life’s longevity and free ice-cream, keep your pretty mouth shut.”   </em>
</p><p><em>Beomgyu hums in acceptance, turning to rest his head against the pane of his window instead. It is when he closes his eyes that he finally acknowledges the frenzied beat of his heart as it knocks against his ribcage almost painfully. </em>Ah, <em>he muses, </em>there goes the little thing again. </p><p>
  <em> And until he drifts into an isolating sleep, it is the only sound that rings in his ears. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He wonders if Yeonjun can hear it too.  </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Ever since debut, Beomgyu has been pushing the ‘moodmaker of the group’ label for himself—because apart from his talents in the artistic fields of singing, dancing and composing, the one thing he thinks he’s reasonably good at is brightening someone’s day.</p><p>When he is fully in his element, he is an unstoppable little ball of energy whose mere presence can instill happiness within the hearts of those around him. When he isn’t, though, it’s more than just a little difficult to slip into the role of energizer, but if there is another thing that Beomgyu can be faulted for, it is that he <em> always </em>puts those he loves before him. It is both his greatest strength and his biggest flaw. </p><p>And so even when he isn’t in the brightest of moods himself but it happens to be that Kai is weighed down by the stress of not being able to work through a difficult move in one of their choreographies, he will—without chancing a second thought at the matter—curb his own sadness and instead, walk Kai through the steps with an encouraging smile on his face and a word of hearty praise sitting on the tip of his tongue for when he finally succeeds.  </p><p>When he chances upon the occasional hate speech on the internet and is almost reduced to tears by how simply trying his best is apparently enough to warrant such malicious words, he will swallow the hurt he feels and instead card his fingers reassuringly through Taehyun’s hair as the second youngest sobs into his neck, crestfallen by a few comments that had been made about his singing. </p><p>He has done this so often that he has grown accustomed to packaging his own dejection and hurt into a pretty little box which he only unpacks later, when he is alone with his tears. When it becomes too overwhelming a burden for his narrow shoulders to carry is when he enlists the assistance of either Soobin or Yeonjun. </p><p>For Kai and Taehyun, however, he is an older brother. He is who they seek solace from in times of hardship. He cannot showcase his vulnerability to them because he is the shoulder they cry on—the wall they lean on—and not the other way around. </p><p>Aside from all of that, though, it isn’t uncommon for the three of them to sit down and have a healthy conversation about their troubles, devoid of any tears and despondency. It isn’t a planned therapy session or anything grand of the sort; rather, it’s quite unremarkable, but it makes all the difference. </p><p>Now is one of those times, when the three of them have decided to squeeze in a little bit of extra practice in between other schedules, and are splayed across the wooden floor of the practice room in varying positions. </p><p>“Why do we have to have choreographies for three-fourths of the songs on our album? Who on earth thought that would be a good idea?” Kai grouches as he massages the sore muscles of his legs. It’s always a bit of a foreign experience—hearing<em> Kai</em>, of all people, weep about the woes of the world—because he usually isn’t one for complaining, owing simply to his commendable quality of taking everything that is thrown at him in stride, and also partly to the pureness of his heart.</p><p>Beomgyu often thinks Kai is more suited to the role of energizer than he himself is, what with his inherent ability to light up whichever room he enters with his boisterous laughter and unending quota of belly rubs. The kinder part of his conscience tells him to be a little nicer to himself, because him and Kai are two very different individuals and are responsible for brightening their surroundings in their own disparate ways. He decides to listen to it today. </p><p>Beomgyu is a little different in real life from how the cameras see him—a little less loud, a little more empathetic. It isn’t as if he’s putting on a persona when the camera is on or anything of the sort, it isn’t as if he’s not being true to himself and the fans that love him so very much. It’s just that his duties as moodmaker are slightly more subdued and muted off-camera; instead of loud screaming and incessant jumping around, it takes the form of comforting hugs and softly-uttered reassurances.</p><p>“I mean, other groups don’t do <em> this </em>much, do they?” Kai continues with a petulant huff. “Why are we the only ones subject to this tyranny? Why should we have to face this injustice alone?” </p><p>“I don’t know, I think it’s pretty beneficial for us,” Taehyun says thoughtfully, leaning his weight on his arms and folding his legs beneath himself. “If you think about it, a lot of the time the tracks on an album—apart from the title and one random B-side, maybe—are largely overlooked and often ignored. And that shouldn’t be the case, right, because roughly the same amount of work goes into the making of all of the songs and for that, they deserve to get the same amount of exposure and recognition. I think that having so many choreographies and content for non-title tracks is kind of like yelling at the public, <em> Look, these are our songs too. </em>It doesn’t reduce our discography to, like, the three title tracks we have or something,” he finishes. </p><p>Beomgyu’s eyes shimmer with a mix of reverence and admiration as he tells him, “There goes our smart Taehyunie, snatching hearts with the power of his first-rate brain yet again.” </p><p>Taehyun rolls his eyes at him dismissively but the small, proud smile that rises to his lips tells Beomgyu that he appreciates the praise. </p><p>Taehyun has always been like that—mature beyond his years, with a brain that runs faster than he himself can handle sometimes. Beomgyu is convinced that the boy must have been some sort of sage or philosopher in his past life, spending his days sitting in a sequestered cave on some remote mountain and imparting life-changing advice to the peasants who stumbled upon him. The image has an amused grin rising to his lips.  </p><p>Beomgyu often feels inadequate when Taehyun looks to him for advice, feeling unsuited for the task each time. The younger possesses more intelligence than Beomgyu will ever be able to garner, and it sparks within him an insecurity that is always difficult to extinguish. </p><p>“What is it that I might know that you don’t already?” Beomgyu had once asked him when the younger had climbed into his bed in the dark of the night. </p><p>“I think you should start giving yourself a little more credit, hyung,” Taehyun had yawned in reply as he slipped his legs through Beomgyu’s. </p><p>“What do you think about the whole ‘excessive content for a single album’ thing, hyung?” Kai tilts his head at him curiously, chest still heaving with irregular breaths, though they have begun to peter out now. His impossibly long legs stretch out in front of him; a bead of sweat traces its way along his defined facial features. Their little maknae has grown so well, Beomgyu thinks, growing slightly sentimental at the thought. </p><p>“I just think that while learning each choreography down to its finest detail can be maddening sometimes, it must be exciting for the public each time we come back with something new?” he says, tugging at Kai’s shoelace as he searches for the right words. “Like they know that they’re not going to get one grand track with a cool dance routine and five side pieces that pale in comparison, but a well rounded EP in which each song carries as much significance as the next.” </p><p>“That’s an interesting take,” Taehyun comments. Kai nods in agreement, and then for a minute the room is quiet aside from their mostly steady breathing. That is until Beomgyu decides to pierce the silence with a question that he often finds himself looking for the answer to.</p><p>“What.... What do you guys think it would be like to be in a group with someone you admire a lot?” he says timidly, pushing himself up on his elbows to get a better view of his two younger members. </p><p>They take a moment to consider the question, and Beomgyu takes that moment to appreciate how his words weren’t met with any judgement. Yet again he is left speechless by how developed the minds of their two youngest are—how they have cultivated a level of maturity that allows them to understand how the world works in a way that many twice their age are incapable of. </p><p>“I think,” Taehyun begins slowly, “that it would be pretty sublime, being on the same platform as someone you look up to. But at the same time—and this also depends heavily on how you view yourself—it would also be really...how do you say... detrimental? Yeah, I think it could be really damaging to your self-worth too.” </p><p>Beomgyu’s eyebrows pinch together. “How so?” </p><p>“Well,” Taehyun continues, lips pursed in thought, “If you have a low self-worth to begin with, being in the same space with someone whom you consider as your idol could trigger a lot of self-deprecation. Idolisation in general is a very iffy thing, in my opinion. Sure, there’s no harm in looking up to someone, but it can grow into something really unhealthy if it isn’t kept in check.” </p><p>“It does leave a lot of room for an inferiority complex,” Kai agrees. “And just overall, I feel like it would be very demoralising. The cons outweigh the pros, to be honest.” He exhales deeply then, reaching a hand out mindlessly to play with the tousled locks of hair that sit atop Beomgyu’s head. “Either way, why the sudden question, hyung? I mean, what prompted it?” </p><p>Beomgyu swallows nervously. “I just… I have a friend who debuted along with someone who he looked up to a lot when they were both trainees. I think he’d be able to relate to a lot of what you said. We… were talking the other day and it got me thinking about what the whole thing would be like, you know? Especially since I don’t have any experience with it,” he lies through his teeth. </p><p>Kai and Taehyun share a look and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, Beomgyu thinks he might have been caught. But then they look back at him, and the look in their eyes is telling of the conversation they had telepathically. <em> We know that there is something you aren’t telling us, </em> is what the shine in Kai’s eyes communicates. <em> But you can take all the time in the world to get there. We will be here for you</em>, is what Taehyun’s tells him. </p><p>Beomgyu lies awake for longer than usual that night. He stares up at the ceiling—the ceiling that has one singular glow-in-the-dark star attached to it, from when him and Soobin had tried to spruce up the decor of their room but had almost broken their necks in the process and had called it a day instead—and dissects everything that Taehyun and Kai had said earlier, bit by bit. </p><p>Apart from the presence of his members, idolising Yeonjun has been the only constant in his life for the past four years. It is ingrained in his being now. It comes to him as naturally as breathing. </p><p>And the thing is: Beomgyu knows.He knows that there is nothing healthy about the way he looks up to his bandmate. The only good thing that has come of it is the birth of the love he now feels for him, but apart from that, there is nothing he has to thank it for. In fact, rather than gratitude, what it deserves most is condemnation. It is nothing short of torturous—the way it claws at him from the inside, wraps loosely around his throat like a vine that tightens whenever he catches sight of Yeonjun. Beomgyu supposes that is why he always finds himself short of breath around the older. </p><p>But then what is he to do with the divinity that is Choi Yeonjun, if not idolise him? Yeonjun is far too supreme of a human being not to be admired. He is the trees, the mountains, the rivers, the rain. He was made to be loved, and Beomgyu was made to love him.</p><p>Loving Yeonjun—idolising him—is a facet of his existence now. Beomgyu is not yet ready to let go of it. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>How did it even come to this? </p><p>
  <em> That is all that Beomgyu can think, despondent, as he stares at an enraged Yeonjun—chest heaving, eyes ablaze with unbridled anger and a multitude of other emotions.  </em>
</p><p>How did it even come to this? </p><p>
  <em> It had started off with unwarranted pettiness from Beomgyu’s end, because it has apparently reached a point where he’s become incapable of repressing his jealousy when it rears its ugly head.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I just think that it’s unfair how you’re always placed on a pedestal just because you’ve been here longer,” he had said to Yeonjun after his sixth and Yeonjun’s thirtieth (probably—both of them have lost count at this point) monthly evaluation.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He’d meant for the remark to be more playful in nature than anything else, with just the slightest edge of deliberate envy peaking through. He had expected Yeonjun to take it in stride considering the push-and-pull dynamic the two of them have managed to establish in between themselves in the past five months. But perhaps this wasn’t a subject to be treated lightly, because he knows that it hasn’t always been smooth-sailing for Yeonjun. Contrarily, it almost never has been. The three year gap between the beginning of Yeonjun’s journey as a trainee and Beomgyu’s arrival at the company left enough room for both the formation and unravelling of meaningful friendships, and for the cementing of his standing as ‘legendary trainee.’ Yeonjun has seen more hardships than Beomgyu can fathom and he knows nowhere near the full story of the time Yeonjun had spent at the company that he hadn’t been there to witness, so really, it hadn’t been his place to say something like that.  </em>
</p><p><em> But Beomgyu nothing if not young, abrasive and insecure, grappling desperately for some semblance of stability in his life—a life that is anything </em> but <em> stable, and everything taken together had led to the voicing of bitter thoughts that perhaps wouldn’t have been in his mind to begin with on a normal day. A normal day on which he wasn’t held at the throat by the results of his evaluation which did nothing but prove that he is inferior to Yeonjun in every sense of the word.  </em></p><p>
  <em> And if Beomgyu has his insecurities, he should have been empathetic enough to understand that everyone else has their fair share of them too, and so maybe he should have taken a moment to reconsider—a moment to think a little more—when Yeonjun’s eyebrows had furrowed at his comment.  </em>
</p><p><em>“It’s not that I’m placed on a pedestal,” he’d countered, defensive, “it’s </em>because <em>I’ve been here longer than a majority of you guys that my skills are slightly more developed. I’ve had more time to work on myself—spend a few more months here and you’ll find that that’s true.” </em></p><p><em> Beomgyu had scoffed—an ugly thing, teeming with so much contempt and disdain that Yeonjun had frozen, eyes wide. By that point, most of the other trainees had filed out of the practice room, far too exhausted to partake in the drama that was slowly stirring. Kang Taehyun had been one of the last to leave the room—a clever boy with a fierceness too large for his small body. He had given Beomgyu a warning glance, one that said, </em> Stop, you’re treading dangerous territory<em>, before leaving the room. Beomgyu hadn’t heeded it.  </em></p><p><em>“You’re so full of yourself sometimes,” he’d said instead, controlled completely by the bitterness that always lingers at the back of his throat. “You just </em>have <em>to go and rub it in our faces that you’re leagues better than the rest of us will ever be, don’t you? You’ve been here longer, sure—apparently long enough for your ego to become what it is today.” </em></p><p>
  <em> Yeonjun had done nothing to refute his claims even then, instead saying calmly, “Beomgyu, you know that isn’t what I meant. Let’s both take a moment to cool down, why don’t we? Look, we can sit here and—”  </em>
</p><p><em> And here was Yeonjun, as patient and understanding as ever—and then there was Beomgyu, petulant and brash and ugly, conscience clouded completely by the irrepressible urge to </em> hurt.<em> He wants Yeonjun to fight back—why isn’t he fighting back?  </em></p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu smacks the hand that had been extended towards him in a kind invitation to take a hold of it. Something shifts in Yeonjun’s eyes.  </em>
</p><p><em> Beomgyu ignores it and continues. He is unstoppable now, possessed fully by the vindictive, malevolent demon that he hadn’t ever wanted to expose to the light of day. “No—I don’t want to sit with you,” he says, voice raw and straining as it struggles to relay the emotions his heart is bursting at the seams with, “I don’t—I don’t </em> need <em> your pity—I don’t need you to tell me all the things that I already know in that patronising voice of yours. Look at you—your complex is showing this very moment!” he laughs then, hysterical. “You’re proving everything that I said with each word you say. You’re so—you’re despicable, Choi Yeonjun. You’re all bark and no bite—all false confidence with nothing to show for it and—”  </em></p><p>
  <em> He doesn’t get any farther than that, because Yeonjun grabs him—one strong hand fisting the collar of his t-shirt and the other taking hold of his bony wrist in an almost crushing grip. Beomgyu whines pitifully in the back of his throat at the pain that shoots up his arm and the fear that seizes his heart at the look shining in Yeonjun’s eyes.  </em>
</p><p><em>“Don’t you </em>dare,<em>” he says, voice dangerously low. Beomgyu has never heard him like this. Everything he had been feeling previously—all of the anger, the hurt, the jealousy, the pettiness—all of it fizzles into thin air, superseded by the terror and guilt that flow through him now. “I did not bend over backwards and spend hundreds of sleepless nights working my </em>ass <em>off just for some no-name newbie to tell me that my confidence is misplaced. I know damn well what I am and am not capable of—I know every single one of my flaws inside out and I acknowledge them—so I don’t need an entitled eighteen-year-old on a high horse to tell me where I’m going wrong.” His eyes flash vibrantly then. Beomgyu registers the emotions glinting in them with his heart in his throat—there is insecurity, hurt, disappointment and anger—there is so much of it all. How had Beomgyu been so blind as to gloss over the first three entirely? </em></p><p>
  <em> He is snapped harshly back to reality by the tightening of Yeonjun’s hand on his wrist. His glassy eyes meet Yeonjun’s fierce ones.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You don’t know the first thing about me, Choi Beomgyu,” he says—quiet, menacing, “so I’d advise you to keep your nose out of other people’s business before you get into serious trouble for it.”  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Beomgyu is released from his harsh grip roughly then, and the suddenness of it sends him toppling backwards onto the hard wooden floor. Yeonjun does not reach out to break his fall. Neither does he stop to help him up when Beomgyu lands with a force so strong that it rips a heart-wrenching little sound from his throat. Instead, he grabs his bag, turns on his heel and storms out of the door. It slams shut so violently that it rattles within its frame. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So perhaps it had come to this because Beomgyu isn’t as good a person as his family, his friends—he himself—had thought him to be. He’d allowed his resentment and rancour to get the better of him, and for that, he is to be faulted. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> An underhanded attempt at banter had eventually ended in the dismantling of a friendship that had perhaps never been his to begin with.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He curls up pitifully in one corner of the room, then—and cries. Cries hard for the red on his wrist and the pain in his back, harder for a lost friendship—and hardest, maybe, for the ache in his chest. </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>‘The calm before the storm,’ as they say, is—in a way—slightly more terrifying than the storm itself. </p><p>It lulls you into a false sense of normalcy, deceives you into believing that all is well and that there is nothing to be fearful of. That is until that normalcy is blown away by the harsh winds, and you are left to weather the storm with a heavy, distrustful heart.</p><p>And the reason it is more terrifying than the storm itself is that it has you questioning each peaceful moment that you chance upon thereon, keeps you turning your head to ensure that there isn’t anything looming in your shadow, ready to strike when the moment is right. </p><p>And so perhaps Beomgyu should have known that the universe has been keeping something catastrophic in store for him when Yeonjun sidles up to his room on a quiet, uneventful day and asks him to join him in the practice room for a moment. </p><p>“There’s something that I’ve been working on lately and I want to show you first because—best friend privileges,” he beams, excited, and Beomgyu’s heart flutters at how easy it is to love him—him, with his cute little giggle, his kitten-like eyes that Beomgyu has seen sparkle with every single emotion in the spectrum, his pink lips that are, more often that not, stretched into a happy smile. He is just so easy to love.</p><p>“A dance?” Beomgyu questions as he pulls his sneakers on, entirely compliant to Yeonjun’s last-minute request. </p><p>Yeonjun nods, bursting at the seams with anticipation. He rocks on the balls of his feet impatiently as Beomgyu ties his laces. The childlike innocence brings a fond smile to the younger’s lips, which he suppresses by pursing them.</p><p>He stands up, dusts himself off and then tilts his head towards the door in a silent question, in reply to which Yeonjun grabs his hand with what is the most luminescent smile that Beomgyu has ever seen on a person. They stop by the living room once to ensure that Hobak (who is curled up cozily on the kitchen counter) had eaten the food that had been kept out for her, and after bidding her farewell, they’re off. </p><p>The practice room that has been assigned to them and them specifically since before their debut has its fair share of memories that Beomgyu would rather keep repressed forever. But for every unpleasant memory that can be associated with the place, there are two equally wonderful ones, so he supposes the good outweighs the bad. Whatever may be the case, it is an irrefutable fact of life that these four light brown walls have seen the five of them through both their toughest and their happiest times in the few years that it has been theirs. </p><p>Yeonjun drags him over to the middle of the room, then. Owing to his indecisiveness in determining which spot would provide the best vantage point, Beomgyu gets pushed and pulled in one direction and then the other until he irritably frees his arm from Yeonjun’s grip and plops down—with a sureness he only wishes he had on a regular basis—onto a spot a few paces in front of and to the right of the center of the room.</p><p>“There,” he huffs. “Simple as that.” </p><p>Yeonjun grins at him sheepishly before he seems to recall their objective in coming here and bounds over to the speakers, phone in hand. He fiddles with the wires for a brief moment, startling when the speakers emit an ear-grating <em> screech </em>that has the both of them pressing their hands over their ears.  </p><p>“Sorry!” Yeonjun yells contritely and Beomgyu groans, forgiving, in response. </p><p>A minute later, the first few beats of a song that sounds vaguely familiar to Beomgyu’s ears pierce the air that surrounds them. Yeonjun jogs over to the cross in the center of the room, and his eyes meet Beomgyu’s in the mirror fleetingly. He then focuses on his own reflection—a nice one, in Beomgyu’s humble opinion, with his casual tracksuit that he manages to pull off in a way that makes it look like it was designed specifically for a runway, and his smooth, glossy hair that has faded to a muted blond at this point—and his aura of playfulness hardens into unflinching resolve in the snap of a finger. The change is astounding.</p><p>Somewhere in the back of his mind, Beomgyu registers the song as the one that Yeonjun had covered last year and he wonders if his heart will make it out of this alright; watching Yeonjun dance to his own unique voice would most likely prove to be too much for the poor thing to handle. </p><p>As he watches Yeonjun warm up and play with the music, Beomgyu allows himself to recede into the depths of his mind briefly. </p><p>When Beomgyu had first realised that the love he felt for Yeonjun was far from platonic, it had been a concoction of emotions that he’d felt. Fear had trumped all of the rest, though. It had crashed down on him all at once—a huge contradiction to the nature of the epiphany he had had minutes prior. The realisation that he now has a name for the tempestuous storm of emotions that he feels for Yeonjun had been a gentle one, lapping at the island of his chest in slow, unhurried waves. But then the one that followed—that the implications of liking a bandmate were severe, to say the least—came to him as harshly as the other one had been gentle. </p><p>Beomgyu cherishes—has always cherished—his members the most, and if there is one thing that he knows for certain, it is that he will never be the one to threaten their careers—the careers that they have worked so tirelessly for. He adores them far too much for such a betrayal, even if it wasn’t intentional. </p><p>What, then, is he supposed to do with the love that swirls in the confines of his chest, spilling over when Yeonjun does as much as smile at him sweetly? There is only one answer to that, Beomgyu supposes. If he can’t keep them under wraps, he will be left with no option but to bear witness to his own excruciating, metaphorical death as he slowly but surely gets crushed under the weight of his feelings.</p><p>The part of the song that plays now is its pre-chorus, Beomgyu acknowledges. Now, Yeonjun <em> really </em>starts to dance. And boy, is it a sight. </p><p>Beomgyu understands now why Yeonjun was as eager to show this to him as he was. If he possessed even half of the talent that seeps from the pores in Yeonjun’s body, he would broadcast it proudly to the world too. </p><p>Beomgyu only wishes for a day wherein he’d be able to fully enjoy watching Yeonjun dance without comparing himself to his every movement; a day in which he would allow himself to get wrapped up in the intricacies of Yeonjun’s enthralling performances without feeling bile rise to his throat; a time in which he’d be able to watch him move without the treacherous thoughts of <em> Why can’t I dance like that? Why don’t my limbs move as flawlessly as his do? Do I look like that too? </em>plaguing his conscience constantly. </p><p>But perhaps that would be asking for too much, because Yeonjun is <em> magnificent. </em>His very being drips with opulence, with luxuriance, with confidence and all the other things that Beomgyu can reach for but will never have. He is the sky—the sun—and Beomgyu is the earth—they are worlds apart. It is not in their destiny to meet in the middle, because Yeonjun is far too great and Beomgyu is incapable of doing anything but holding out his hand and hoping that, one day, his fingers will brush against the velvet of the clouds. Maybe once, during dawn or dusk, when the sun kisses the land for a sweet, ephemeral moment—maybe then they can bask in each other’s presence, but nothing more than that. It is not in the blueprint. It is not in their fate.</p><p>The song ends. The dam breaks.  </p><p>The calm before the storm is far more terrifying than the storm itself, because when the falsified sense of normalcy is ripped from you, the wound that it leaves behind <em> burns. </em></p><p>One moment, all is well, and the next, Beomgyu is broken. </p><p>He cries, and he cries, and he cries—the tears just won’t <em> stop</em>, and his heart—his heart that has held nothing but love for the past four years—hurts so much that he is surprised it hasn’t burst and tainted the floor beneath him with its remnants yet. A part of him wants it to do just that, because maybe then—maybe if he presents it to the boy it yearns for on a rusted silver platter in all of its bruised, bloodied glory—maybe then Yeonjun would finally understand. </p><p>Alas, the traitorous thing stays within the confines of his aching chest—almost beating out of it but never fully.</p><p>Through the film of moisture that blurs his vision, Beomgyu can just about discern the outline of a kneeling Yeonjun in front of him, his hair glistening under the harsh lighting of the practice room. He then feels hands on his cheeks, and through the ringing in his ears, he can faintly make out a panicked, “Beomgyu, Beomgyu, what’s wrong? Tiger, bear, Cookey, please tell hyung what’s wrong?” </p><p>Beomgyu shakes his head frantically, adamant on keeping his face hidden. His is soaked with tears—a testament to his weakness. Yeonjun’s is soaked with sweat—an attestation to his greatness. They are not the same. They never will be. </p><p>He feels fingers hook under his chin, and then his face is lifted. He closes his eyes, unwilling to see what the look on Yeonjun’s face would be once he sees how much of an irrevocable mess Beomgyu is. </p><p>“Look at me.” </p><p>And <em> oh, </em> the request is so <em> soft, </em>so gentle, so fitting for someone as unfathomably kind as Yeonjun. What kind of person would Beomgyu be if he were to refuse? </p><p>And so, he looks. </p><p>Yeonjun’s eyes speak to him as they bore into his own. Their faces are so close that they are surely breathing the same air; what Beomgyu breathes out, Yeonjun breathes in, what Yeonjun exhales, Beomgyu inhales. The heat from Yeonjun’s fingers around his chin is <em> scalding, </em>but Beomgyu is too weak to push them away. </p><p>For a moment—a moment so quiet that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if they discovered that the world has frozen around them—they simply stare at each other. And then he is enveloped by the warmth of Yeonjun’s embrace. </p><p>It wraps around each bone in his body, slipping past the surface until it settles deep within and becomes one with his being. It seeps into his cells, injects itself into his bloodstream in the way drugs are administered, and that’s quite the fitting analogy, he thinks, considering the headiness that courses through his veins. He feels as if he’s floating, as if his feet aren’t quite touching the ground, as if he’s been suspended by a thread in the extraterrestrial realm that separates reality from illusion, and the only thing that grounds him is the same thing that had set aflame these feelings to begin with: the arms around his body. Yeonjun’s embrace is the best place in the whole universe, Beomgyu decides. </p><p>“Hyung,” he whispers, voice cracked and hollowed. Yeonjun pulls back but keeps his arms rooted around Beomgyu’s frame. “Hyung,” he says again—desperately, longingly—tripping on a hiccup midway. “Hyung, I love you.” </p><p>The world slows to a stop. Beomgyu soldiers on. </p><p>“Yeonjunie hyung, I love you—I love you so much that it <em> hurts.</em> I have known nothing but loving you since the very first time I met you, and I just… I love you, but I—” he breathes in sharply. Closes his eyes. Opens them again. And then continues, “I don’t think I can love you the way you deserve to be loved without learning to love myself first.” </p><p>Yeonjun says nothing. Instead, he wipes at the crystalline liquid that drips ceaselessly from Beomgyu’s wide, watery eyes. </p><p>“B—Because, in my mind, a world in which I am beautiful does not exist.” </p><p>Beomgyu hears Yeonjun suck in a sharp breath. He doesn’t know what to make of it. </p><p>“And… And I’m willing to change that. I <em> want </em> to change that because I’m just so <em> tired </em>of seeing myself this way and I—I owe myself this much,” he says bravely through the tears in his eyes and the hitches in his breath. “But learning to see myself in a different light is going to be a long, tedious journey, and I need you to hold my hand through it a—and promise me that you’ll wait for me until I come out of the other side. Can... Can hyung do that?” he finishes, words fading into a feeble whisper towards the end. </p><p>Yeonjun’s fingers slip through his. He presses his palm against Beomgyu’s, and then, with the gentlest hand on his nape, he draws their heads together. </p><p>Along with the puff of air that leaves his lips is one singular, six-letter word. A prayer. A promise. </p><p>“Always.” </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Look at me.”</p><p>Yeonjun pushes Beomgyu’s head up to face his own, and the words that he had kept prepared all this while are stolen right from the tip of his tongue. All that remains is the image of Beomgyu’s gorgeous face, burning itself into the lids of eyes for the rest of eternity.</p><p>He is breathtaking. He is the most charming thing that Yeonjun has ever laid eyes on. </p><p>Even like this—with red-rimmed eyes, tear-streaked cheeks and disheveled, unkempt hair—he is nothing short of lovely.</p><p>But then again, in Yeonjun’s eyes, Beomgyu has always been the most beautiful person in the room.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Learning to love yourself is perhaps the steepest, most dangerous learning curve in the history of learning curves.</p><p>It is a process, waking up every day and telling the demon in his head, <em> Not today, not tomorrow, and not for the days to come. </em></p><p>It comes with its fair share of epiphanies, as well. The most profound of them all so far, Beomgyu thinks, is that perhaps the reason he was having so much trouble finding himself is that maybe he’d been looking in the wrong places all along.</p><p>Now, he looks in the hearts of the people that love him. In the hearts of his members, which, with every beat, chant, <em> We love you so very much, our little Beomgyu. </em>In the eyes of the fans that adore him beyond imagination. In the soul of the person who loves him most.</p><p>“Morning, beautiful,” sounds a voice from behind him. Hands wrap around his waist, and the cliché of it all has a giggle rising to his lips. </p><p>“What’s so funny?” Yeonjun rasps, tucking his face—still warm with sleep—into the crook of Beomgyu’s neck. </p><p>“Oh, nothing,” Beomgyu replies easily as he adds yet another toasty pancake to the steadily growing pile (they’re a little misshapen, but that’s alright). “Just how awfully cheesy you are.” </p><p>Yeonjun places a transient kiss on the skin of Beomgyu’s neck, and Beomgyu, ticklish by disposition, jerks away from him with a surprised little laugh. Yeonjun ceases his ministrations when Beomgyu’s laughter begins to grow too loud for the hour of the day, and instead, he reaches around him to turn the stove off. Then, the soft hands on his waist turn him around, and they find themselves staring into the pools of warmth in each other’s eyes. </p><p>Like this, bathed in the golden glow of the morning sunlight that spills in through the kitchen window, Yeonjun looks like a deity. But—he muses as he traces along the contours of Yeonjun’s cheekbone with loving fingers—maybe Beomgyu can be one too. </p><p>It is an unstable, debilitating, agonizing process—learning to love yourself, and there is no denying that. But no matter how many hours, days, weeks or even years it may take, Beomgyu promises himself that he will never give up, because he owes this to himself. No matter how many lows he reaches, highs will always follow. He will put in as much effort as it requires and more, he will shed enough tears to fill five rivers and he will bleed until he feels dizzy—he will do whatever it takes. He is willing to hit rock bottom time and time again if it means that one day, he’d be able to scale the mountain of insecurities that has been the biggest, most gargantuan obstacle in his life, stand proudly at its pinnacle and scream at the world below, <em> This is me.</em></p><p>So until the day air ceases to fill his lungs and his heart reaches a point at which it is incapable of loving anymore, he will never give up. </p><p>And through it all, he will hold the hand of the one he loves the most.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if you’ve made it this far, i want to thank you for taking time out of your day to read this &lt;3 i hope you enjoyed! </p><p>i tried to include as many tid-bits as i’ve picked up on (things that we’ve seen happen in their lives, the members’ habits, the little pieces of info that they share with us about their lives, and how i see each the dynamics different pairs have, as seen through beomgyu’s lens in the story, etc etc) since i’ve started stanning, in an effort to make the fic slightly more realistic (do keep in mind that inspite of that, this is still a work of fiction!) so i really hope it had the desired effect ^^” </p><p>ngl there’s a sizeable amount of projection in this fic, which is why it’s very close to my heart. that being said, if you found that the issues beomgyu goes through in the story resonate with you, please don’t ever hesitate to reach out for help. remember that we’re all in this together! &lt;3</p><p>if you’d like to get in touch, i just made <a href="https://twitter.com/txtreats?s=09">a twitter</a> and here’s <a href="https://curiouscat.me/txtreats">my cc</a> if you’d rather talk there!</p><p>comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! once again, thank you so much for reading. </p><p>that’s all from me for now!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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